printer sharing in vista & xp

[Guy_laister]

Hi,

I am having a big problem with my vista finding my xp(which is connected to the printer). I have put sharing printers on on both machines. The printer is quite old and the connection is a parrallel cable. It is just that when I try to find my printer it just can't find it. I click ON MY VISTA TO FIND THE XP START-PRINTERS-ADD A PRINTER-ADD A NETWORK,WIRELESS OR NETWORK PRINTER. but then cant find it.

I am running:
windows XP Home (with the printer connected)
Windows Vista Home Basic
Orange livebox to connect to the internet
All these are all done wirelessly.

It is my vista that is tying to look for the xp and the xp has the printer connected

I am new to all this so if you could do it step-by-step and simply I would be greatful!

Many thanks

Guy

[ElrichMeister]

I believe that printer sharing with Vista only work if the Vista Computer has the connected printer, i have tried to share the printer through the XP machine, but it will not work, i believe there was another post on this forum about printer sharing with Vista. I was only successful after i installed the printer on the Vista machine.

[Zefram]

Welcome to PCstats Guy_laister!

The forum thread that ElrichMeister referring to can be found HERE (http://forum.pcstats.com/showthread.php?t=39245)

Basically you need the printer driver for Vista in order for the printer to work. If your printer have driver for Vista, you could setup the printer sharing through vista.
Again, the aforementioned thread links could be useful. ;)

[stlouis1]

in the other thread i also sorta explained installing a printer to a TCP IP port. if you do it that way, even if you dont have vista drivers, you might be able to install XP drivers in compatbility mode that way, but thats a big might

the problem with running it that way, is that your forcing the print queue to run from the client computer, on top of the existing network print queue on the host computer. it can become problematic under the wrong circumstances

here's instructions on installing printers to TCP ip ports although the printer has to have its own ip, so im not 100% if you can do it in a situation where the printer is shared on another computer. the computer may need a static ip to use for the port. i've never tried it. but if i ran across it here at work, i would for the sake of knowing whether or not it works

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/print_add_tcpip_port.mspx?mfr=true

[Guy_laister]

thanks everyone, gonna try it

[msnyir]

First time poster here, long time poster in hardforum and many others. IT as a profession, enthuisist as a hobby.

I started this thread over there which might be helpfull. I also saw some good info here about sharing from the Vista to the XP side.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1164771

Basically, if the printer is parellel connected you NEED to know that port and hook the printer to it. That step is vital and will not work without it. If you can't get access to the port then it won't work at all.

I have a Photosmart 1115 working attached to a Vista box and shared on the XP box.
(USB port) I also have a A710 attached to the XP box and shared on the Vista side. This one sends the print to the printer queue OK, but then gives me a printer error.

[msnyir]

After switching my A710 printer from XP to Vista as host it is now shared and working on both boxes, no issues.

[pcmobiletechs.com]

Go here for details on how to get your printer to work with windows vista.
HP Photosmart 1115 does work with vista with a little tweaking. This should also work with shared printers.

http://pcmobiletechs.com/TechForum/index.php?topic=3.0