Printer Sharing XP --> W7

[kelly]

Anyone have any success in sharing a printer off an XP machine so that you can print from a W7 machine? I know Dan gave up on it.

Working at home today, I wanted to print from my new W7 laptop to my Dell AIO A940 printer. The printer is conected (USB) to my XP Pro desktop. I have it set up for sharing.

I can print to the A940 directly using the USB connection from the W7 laptop. So the driver is fine.

Over the network, the W7 machine sees the A940 printer that is being shared of the XP machine, but I can't add it as a new printer. It shows up when I browse the network for a printer, the it doesn't install.

Then I installed it as a local printer using local port \\MyXPMachine\ (file://\\MyXPMachine\)DellA940. That was looking good, but I got an error about server storage which I fixed by adding a DWORD to the XP registry. Now with that solved, I though it would work.

No joy. The W7 machine sent out the test page, but it didn't print.

To make matters worse, the XP machine would no longer print to the A940. I had to remove the printer on the XP machine and then reinstall it.

I repeated this with the same results.

Frustrating!!!!!

[Freehold Fred]

This is the same difficulty I had sharing an XP printer w/ Vista. Installing the printer on W7 as a 'local printer' is correct. Now you must still install the Windows 7 drivers. The link below indicates that the Windows 7 drivers are installed on the Windows 7 machine, but as I seem to vaguely recall, I had to actually install my Vista driver as an 'additional' driver on the XP machine. I'm a little fuzzy on how I did that now that we have a network-ready printer. Maybe what you could do is install the Printer on W7 as a local printer, create a 'shared port' as the \\server\SharedPrinter. (see link below), then switch local printer to the shared port. Again, as I recall, this worked for a while and then Vista would 'lose' the permanency of the connection and I would have to constantly redo it.

http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/xp-to-windows-7-printer-sharing/

[kelly]

Thanks Fred. I'll have to try tomorrow. However, I think the driver is fine because I could print from the W7 machine to the A940 printer if it was connected directly via USB.

[nathan]

Tony, can I direct you to a thread I opened up on 9-18-2011 entitled 'Adding A Printer', in which you, Dan and Rich assisted me. I don't know but maybe somewhere in there is something that may help.

[kelly]

Well, it's working. I'm not sure how.

Fred - thanks for the link. I had actually done just what it described.
- install the printer locally via USB
- all a local port \\MyXPMachine\ (file://myxpmachine/)DellA940
That's where I was last night.

Today, I realized that the W7 machine and XP machine were on different workgroups. I set the W7 machine to match the XP workgroup. I didn't think that worked. I also set the W7 machine to share the printer. I was also looking at adding drivers on the XP machine for the W7.

Somewhere along the way, it started printing. Maybe I didn't wait long enough somewhere along the way.

Now that it's working, I ain't touching it. However, I had another printer to play with when I feel ambitious.

[Freehold Fred]

Well, it's working. I'm not sure how.

That's what the said about the brain transplant.:smash:

Let us know if it stays connected, because that was my problem with Vista <--- XP Printer Share.

[Rich-M]

I stopped dealing with those issues years ago. If the printer doesn't have an ethernet connection, I use a print server to plug into the router so that all pc's can print off of all prineters without all of the computers having to be on.

[Terry Hanushek]

Tech Problem ***SOLVED***

The technical problem relating to this thread has been resolved!

Please refrain from any additional posting in this thread unless there is an UPDATE to the original problem or new and relevant information related to the topic.

Additional postings may be removed without notice.

Thank you!
KH Mod Squad