home network &sharing printer

Goitster

I know there is a thread on wireless networking but I could not see anything about printer sharing. I have just installed the wireless networking kit which I bought from PC World. This means my wife can access the internet from her laptop. Somehow I got that working ok. Can she now share my printer on this wireless network? If so, how do I go about making this work? We are both running windows XP and have downloaded the service pack 2. Can anyone help. If so please keep it simple as I have limited knowledge and understanding. Here's hoping!

NellyLock

dependent on your modem...if your router is does not have a printer port then you will have to share it through a pc. ie your printer is plugged into a pc (which has to be on). on that pc you go to->

control panel->printers and faxes->right click on the printer you wish to share->click sharing then click the share this printer bobble.

thats about it the printer should be shared. if you have a router with a built in printer sharing device then i cant help you

Goitster

Thanks for that. My router does not have a printer port. However I assume that the printer driver will have to be installed on the laptop and when I try to do that I get the message, "There is nothing to be setup. Please check that you have selected a driver/application and retry."

I Have set the printer to share on the Desktop Machine...so still confused.

woo

you will need to add a printer on the second pc in the same way as normal.

when it asks say you want to add a network printer, it may find it by searching or you will have to enter the name like: \\pc name\printer name and it will then prompt you to install the drivers.

Goitster

I am impressed by these quick replies!! Are you saying I need to call the main pc a name? How would I do that? Might it already have one?

woo

it should already have one.. if you do a right click on my computer, select properties there should be a tab called computer name (from memory apologies if not quite right). this should tell you the identification of your PC.
The name of the printer you should have set up when you shared it.

Goitster

Hmm, I am doing something wrong I suppose. I do not appear to be able to share anything other than the laptop sharing my pc broadband connection. Is there such a thing as a "mugs guide", saying what to so do on each computer? For this exercise assume that I am the mug. I did discover that my printer is not supporterd by XP (epson colour stylus 800) but that the epson 850c printer driver will run it, so I was able to anstall that driver onto both machines. Hopefully that is a step forward.

Can anyone suggest what I can do?

Please, please.

woo

have a look at:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1596

sra

I'll tell you how I got printer access. The first time I did this was a few days ago so apologies if there is an easier way or if it doesn't work for you.


In the control panel select 'network and internet connection'
then I used 'set up or change a home or office network' (but you would use 'set up a wireless...') and I used the wizard

that set the whole thing up.

Now to setup the printer...
Goto control panel select 'network and internet connection' then click 'my network places' in the left panel, then click 'view workgroup computers' - You should see all the computers on the network.

Drag the 3-computer icon (in the address bar - assuming you have your folder view set to show one) onto the desktop so you can get here faster next time.

Now when you click on a computer you should see an icon for all printers attached to that computer.

clicking on a printer for the first time brings up a box saying 'you are about to connect to a printer on whatevercomputer which will automatically install a print driver on your machine

One final thing, you have to make sure your firewall is setup to allow netbios for all this to work

Goitster

I am appreciative of everyone's help, however I have been unable to make any progress at all....Perhaps I am just doomednot to network.