How to connect my laptop to the printer thats connected to my pc

emerald21

Hi there, Can anyone tell me what i need to do so that i can connect my printer to my laptop. Its currently connected to my main pc in another room. Thank you

googler

Install the printer driver on your laptop, using the disc that came with the printer.

Then pick up your laptop, walk through to the room where the printer is, switch the PC off and unplug the printer. Connect it to the laptop, power up the laptop and print.

The above paragraph will vary depending on whether or not you have a wired or wireless network in your house - but you haven't told us whether you have or not. More detail required

kwikbreaks

Well...
Very briefly you need to network the two PCs, enable file and printer sharing, and then set the printer as shared on the PC that it is connected to.

Now if you need all the detail on that spelling out it would be a whole lot easier to plug the printer into the laptop and install the drivers for it.

enigma52

you are assuming of course that the laptop doesn't have windows 7 installed as printers don't usually have drivers for that os installed on their disks.

emerald21

googler wrote: »

Install the printer driver on your laptop, using the disc that came with the printer.

Then pick up your laptop, walk through to the room where the printer is, switch the PC off and unplug the printer. Connect it to the laptop, power up the laptop and print.

The above paragraph will vary depending on whether or not you have a wired or wireless network in your house - but you haven't told us whether you have or not. More detail required

Sorry. Well its a net book actually so no room for inserting disks. Its windows xp and a wireless connection.

penrhyn

Have you tried plugging your printer into the laptop?
Even XP has generic printer drivers and if it hasn't got yours chances are you can download them from the web.

littlepanther

Here are you options:

1. You could plug in the printer and see if the drivers are already installed.

2. Download the driver from the manufacturer's website. This is what I usually do as I then have the latest driver.

3. Email the document to yourself and print from the desktop.

But, I had this issue and you really don't want to take the netbook to where the printer is and plug it in. So you could turn on file and printer sharing that has been mentioned and then share the printer. You can then install the printer on the netbook and you will be looking for a printer on the network and not connected locally. With this option you need the desktop switched on to print.

But there is an option to print wirelessly directly to the printer and if the desktop is wireless even better.

What you need is a wireless print server, this is a wireless "box" that connects to the printer, it has an IP address and you can then specify this IP address when setting up the printer. You can then set up box computers to connect if they are both wireless. Otherwise plug in the print server when you need it. Belkin and Netgear make print servers or you can get an Apple Airport Express, works on both Mac and PC, I use the Airport Express and very happy with it. I can also play music through it using iTunes as a bonus. I can't provide links as I'm a new user so you'll have to Google.

Hope that helps. Happy to provide more details if you need it.

emerald21

littlepanther wrote: »

Here are you options:

1. You could plug in the printer and see if the drivers are already installed.

2. Download the driver from the manufacturer's website. This is what I usually do as I then have the latest driver.

3. Email the document to yourself and print from the desktop.

But, I had this issue and you really don't want to take the netbook to where the printer is and plug it in. So you could turn on file and printer sharing that has been mentioned and then share the printer. You can then install the printer on the netbook and you will be looking for a printer on the network and not connected locally. With this option you need the desktop switched on to print.

But there is an option to print wirelessly directly to the printer and if the desktop is wireless even better.

What you need is a wireless print server, this is a wireless "box" that connects to the printer, it has an IP address and you can then specify this IP address when setting up the printer. You can then set up box computers to connect if they are both wireless. Otherwise plug in the print server when you need it. Belkin and Netgear make print servers or you can get an Apple Airport Express, works on both Mac and PC, I use the Airport Express and very happy with it. I can also play music through it using iTunes as a bonus. I can't provide links as I'm a new user so you'll have to Google.

Hope that helps. Happy to provide more details if you need it.

Thank you for that lol but its a bit complicated for me :eek:as i only know how to do certain things on a pc but im learning all the time. Will have a try though

gaming_guy

I'd share the printer over the network

to share the printer:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/honeycutt_july2.mspx

one of the disadvantages of this method is that whenever you print from another computer, the machine that has the printer attached has to be switched on to successfully print

pendulum

I don't know how much these wireless print servers are but considering you can get a decent new wireless printer for around £60 or so, I doubt it would be worth it! Have you thought about getting a wireless printer? You can plug it in anywhere in the house and print from any machine you like so long as your in range of your wireless network access point. Having no cables to mess around with is a blessing.

luckymoneysaver

is it possible to use a usb splitter to save all the unplugging??

not sure :S