Network Printing Win7 and WinXp

[mcdhu]

Can anyone please help with what I think is a simple conundrum?

I have a small household wifi network consisting of a main PC downstairs running Win7 hardwired to a classic Netgear Modem/Router DG834Gv3. The Canon Pixma MP520 Printer is connected to this main PC via USB.

Upstairs, via a wifi 'dongle' (WPN111?) is a Dell Dimension PC, but this one runs Win Xp.

Before I upgraded the main downstairs PC from WinXp to Win7 the upstairs PC could happily print via the wifi - provided the downstairs PC was switched on.
Guess what? Now it won't!
I have tried all the buttons and settings I can find, both upstairs and downstairs, but no joy so we are currently into running up and down stairs with memory sticks. What am I missing? IT level - beginner-ish!!

Thanks
mcdhu

[Milo Minderbinder]

printer sharing across a mixed xp/win7 or xp/vista network is totally non-intuitive, you have to set the printer up as a LOCAL printer, not a networked one

So, assuming you have the software already installed on both machines, and that the printer is attached to the Win7 system then

1) Go into the printers and devices applet, and "add printer"
2) select LOCAL printer
3)select "create a new port"
4) select standard tcp/ip port
5) give the port a name - this needs to be the IP address of the computer with the printer. Its best if the network has fixed IP addresses, not DHCP
7) select "standard network card" as the interface type
8) now you should be able to select the correct printer through the usual setup routines and install the drivers

you may end up with two versions of the printer installed - one local, and one network. Delete the local one, or at least set the network one as the default

[mcdhu]

Thanks Milo, I'll give it a whirl when I am next allowed near it!
I've now got to the stage where the Xp PC 'sees' the printer - but won't print with the excuse "Printer not responding' despite all switched on downstairs.
mcdhu

[Milo Minderbinder]

thats what happens if you try to connect to it as a networked printer
You HAVE to do it the way I described
Unforseen cockup by M$

[BOAC]

Milo - you obviously have this cracked!

I cannot get an Epson USB printer on 192.168.1 4 to work via a wireless networked laptop. Tried the above, tried 'sharing' but Laptop cannot see it. Google exhausted.

EDIT: XP all around

[mcdhu]

Milo, just tried it on my Xp laptop with the same result. It sees the printer but obviously cannot communicate with it eg can't get the ink levels. The test page is sent but no print. Any other simple ideas?
Does the workgroup title have to be the same.
Seems a shame to have to move up to Win7 on all devices.
mcdhu

[Saab Dastard]

I have one Windows XP 32-bit PC still on my home network, with a HP LJ 4050 connected to a 64-bit Win 7 Pro PC.

I certainly don't have to set up a raw IP port to print from XP to the Win 7 printer.

The key is to add the additional printer drivers for the XP clients to the printer shared on the Win 7 box. It is essential that the same printer driver name is used for both the Win 7 and XP clients (obviously not the same actual driver). So you can't add PCL 5 drivers for XP if you are using PS or PCL 6 drivers on the Win 7 host.

It is poorly documented, and poorly implemented, but then MS don't have much interest in supporting XP.

On top of this, you need to ensure that the user logged in to the XP PC has a valid account on the Win 7 PC to be able to print.

I find the easiest thing is to create a workgroup and make all PCs members of it, then create an account on each PC for each user - ensuring that the names are identical - and then ensure that passwords are kept in sync. This is all a bit of a pain, and is why domains are easier to manage for larger numbers of users - but that's a discussion for another day.

SD

[mcdhu]

I think we'll stick to running up and downstairs with memory sticks. It'll probably save time!
Mcdhu

[BOAC]

Thanks MM. I think it is probably easier to run like mcDhu clutching a memory stick or email to the desktop for printing:) The annoying thing is that I did have it working once so that I could 'Print' from the laptop and the Epson just did it. It doesn't now!

[Mike-Bracknell]

Epsons can be a PITA - they often have drivers which aren't supposed to allow networking...

Epsons are actually one of the easier printer manufacturers to work with in a networking environment. At least their drivers can generally be extracted from the install package - unlike some HPs.

If both machines are running XP then the best bet is to instal the software and drivers on both machines. Then set up both machines on the same workgroup, ideally with fixed IP addresses (ti just makes things more stable.
Same workgroup isn't really a requirement, just the ability to authenticate at the print server (the PC with the printer attached). Another alternative (albeit not so great for security) is to enable the guest account so that it uses this to authenticate print jobs against.

As Saab says, you'll find things a whole lot easier if the user names / passwords are identical on both machines - i.e. both machines have the same range of authenticated users. Also you MUST have a passworded user account to be auhtenticated

Almost - if you treat print jobs the same as you treat file sharing you won't go far wrong.

Once thats sorted, then you can just browse though the network neighbourhood, through the correct workgroup, to the machine and connect to the printer
Thats XP. It should work that way in Windows 7, but it doesn't


Network browsing is, and has always been, broken in Windows. Don't use it if you value your sanity. I wrote the whitepaper on it in 1996. Go straight into browsing specific machines (by NetBIOS name or IP address) and you'll have much more joy.

In Windows 7, especially with a mixed environment you have to do it the way I mentioned earlier. Workgroups are pretty redundant - its the IP address that counts.

Workgroups are related to authentication, not addressing. Anyway, if you have a Win7 to Win7 network then enable a Homegroup as that's basically Noddy does Domains.

Saab's right in his comments about the drivers, in your case make sure you have the correct XP drivers installed on the XP machine
Again, having the same authenticated users on both machines will help


Driver subsystems have to be correct for the machine initiating the printer. The WinXP/Server2003 driver model was superceded by the Vista/Server2008 model which was kept for Win7/Server2008R2. So, you can keep Vista drivers for Win7. More important is the 32/64bit driver question - you can print from a 32 bit PC to a 64 bit PC and vice versa, but you need to have the print driver on the sending PC that's capable of generating the print job. Some drivers are 32/64bit capable, but they're few and far between. If you get stuck with HPs, these days they're mainly using the HP Universal Print Driver but be aware that the one NOT marked v5 in your driver list has issues when being asked to print multiple pages and will steadfastly refuse and only print 1 - change the driver to the v5 driver and that fixes that.

Finally, something Saab mentioned - re his HP printer
They're a bit different in that they create their own special IP ports during setup, usually tied to the printer's serial number. Some Brothers do the same - but that often goes wrong and you often have to recreate the connection through the IP address

Not quite right - the printer "port" used to be specific but these days you can get away with just about anything as they've moved away from the LPR/LPD standards (which is a shame, as you knew with LPR/LPD it just worked!). If you get an issue with the printer port you can always print to "AUTO" and it'll work the same.
Best practice on the HP printers though is to set up the queue with the node name (or FQDN if you've set up your DHCP correctly) rather than the IP address, as then you can leave your printers on DHCP rather than have a support headache when you re-IP your subnet, change your router/DNS or move your printer.


In short, sharing printers over a mixed network is a bloody nightmare

I don't disagree with this one bit - second least favourite part of my job behind fixing malware. Incidentally, with HP printers not giving you an installable driver from the downloadable packages from their website, if you are building a print server and get stuck with drivers and can't get the universal driver for the printer, start the install with the HP package and watch the temp directories whilst the install goes on - the drivers are usually unpacked from the .exe during install and then subsequently deleted, so if you can pause halfway through the install and grab the drivers you won't need all the HP software guff that goes with it all.

[jimtherev]

Wow! Thanks for exposition, Mike. Since I've a mix of HP and Canon printers and '7 and visiting XP, I'll print it out and file it, er, somewhere against the time I inevitably need it. (Probably tomorrow, since I'm about to state that I've had no trouble so far...)

Ta again.

[Booglebox]

Incidentally, with HP printers not giving you an installable driver from the downloadable packages from their website, if you are building a print server and get stuck with drivers and can't get the universal driver for the printer, start the install with the HP package and watch the temp directories whilst the install goes on - the drivers are usually unpacked from the .exe during install and then subsequently deleted, so if you can pause halfway through the install and grab the drivers you won't need all the HP software guff that goes with it all.

I've done that before, oh yes!
Installed a fairly old HP printer on W7 the other day - there's a button next to "Have Disk" in the wizard, marked "Windows Update". Worked beautifully - selected correct printer from updated (exhaustive) list, job done.