I've tried every thing ! I'm still stuck!!

Mumoffour

hi I've just recently bought a laptop, and following a previous thread I've recieved a free wireless router from aol plus money off my broadband every month. yay!
Following the threads in this board I've actually managed to set up the router and set my laptop up plus - tap on the back!!- I've made my laptop a security enabled wireless connection.
Sooo i thought I'd try printer sharing, as per the very helpful instructions from here I ran the network wizard, made sure both my computers were in one workgroup , but when I'm told to pick my printer from list shown its not recognised, when I manually enter my computer and shared printer name still no go.
I've tried turning firewall off on both computers and doing the whole thing all over again, I've even tried pinging the computers, from laptop to desktop it does, but not from desktop to laptop, tried changing ip, and still nothing happens.
I am completely computer illiterate, all I can do is what I'm told to do in very basic terms, so obviously I'm going wrong somewhere but I don't know where, to top it all off I'm going on holiday in a few days and I'd like to sort this out before I go so OH can play with new toy while i go enjoy myself!
Sorry for the long post, but I really hope some one can come up with some answers.

r-ingram

tentative suggestions (sorry, not quite a geek yet):

1) you need to have the printer driver installed on both machines, this should load automatically when you select the printer (which should appear on the list), but maybe you could install the driver manually. My network printers are called what they are called (!) as recognised by windows. I don't give them a name.

2) There is security in the Router (in adition to windows firewall), is this causing the prob? You should be able to access router settings by entering the IP address in windows explorer. I am not suggesting doing away with security, just for the purposes of diagnosis).

3) nothing to do with it, but I wouldn't touch AOL with a bargepole (any more!).