Unable to connect to a new printer
 

I have just bought a new printer, a Canon MP240. This printer works well on its XP Pro powered host, and my XP pro Laptop but I cat connect to it with my daughters laptop running Vista business (Phttui). A google, shows its a common problem .

I am able to see the printer over the network, but an error (0xooooox0 or something like it) occurs every time. I have been trying ideas for three days now, so thought I would come here for help. (See Men do stop and ask for directions occasionally).

Over to the wise ones for their input.:ugh::ugh:

If you hadn't said Vista, I might have started making suggestions...

One hears and agrees Keef, its obviously a Vista networking problem. Just havent found the answer yet. The older Ip2000 worked fine, but had to ditch it as the paper feed went TU.

I had the same problem with my wife's laptop, and the shared printer on an xp host, the answer was simple, install the vista version of the printer driver on the vista m/c, if you've already done that then I pass.

I had a similar problem with Vista printing. I seems that Vista will sometimes see the network drive/shares from other computers other times just won't bother. Even when it does see the shares it often suddenly reports "unable to connect to directory" even though it shows in explorer, just a c**p OS.
The only way I could get it working was to revert to DOS type commands.

I used the net use command i.e.

net use lpt2: \\host\printershare

Once that was successful, installed the printer driver on Vista and pointed at the lpt2 share.

It worked without error, that after a couple of hours of frustrating windows menu system had failed to get anything going.

Mind you next time I use it it will probably give me an error. Windows printing has always been poor, takes a lot of resource.

P Mills
Gatwick Aviation Museum - Charlwood

GG,

Tried that, even downloaded the latest drives and loaded them. Even loaded newest drivers on to host machine.

Pmills,
Tried that, or similar, I used lpt1, and enabled /persistent:yes as well. I installed the printer to lpt1, but still didnt connect. Even disabled firewall on host just in case.

Next thought is a hardware option, buy a network (RJ45/Wireless) to usb adapter and try that. One advantage to that is the host pc wont need to be on to print from the remote laptops.

Vista got different levels of problems with drivers and mainly hardware compatibility issues.
Many hardwares previously used on xp could become useless if changing OS to vista.

Check out for windows 7 B or downgrade to xp to be able to use your printer efficiently.

it's a try, but without guarantee and at your additional cost.

Cap'n,

Well aware of the foibles (high tech word that) of Vista, so I saty away. Vista puter is daughters, so XP upgrade not an option, nor W 7. You know what women are like.....

I am aware that the hardware fix might not work, but at least it shouldnt make things worse, and I ca relocate the printer without running extra cabling.

Does it work if you plug the printer's USB lead into the laptop?

Have you tried using a generic driver such as the HP laserjet 4 (if it is available on Vista)? It tends to work for most printers, good for testing.

Also try switching off bi-directional comms if active (and if present) in the printer properties (ports tab) - found that to cause some issues occasionally.

I know this might sound stupid but have you run the installation disc in the Vista machine?
I ask because I recently bought a new printer. It installed automatically on my macbook, but it would not work on my wife's eee pc which was running xp. The symptoms were the same as you describe but once I ran the disc, it all worked fine.
TN

We have successfully used the SEH PS03a on our home network for a while. The UTN connection gives full two way connection with our two printers. Be aware some ethernet print servers don't do the two way bit so although you can print through them, they don't send data back to the PC like error messages, or in the case of multifunction printers the scanner doesn't link. Check carefully that your printer is supported by the print server you choose and all the functions you want are available over the network or you could be buying a door stop!

I have used the Install disk on the V beast, no joy. Havent tried a direct connect as yet, may try that after daghter goes to work. I have my eye on a couple of lan/usb adapters, they say they are compatible with most printers, tho would just be my luck. I would loose the use of the scanner the host pc when going the hardware option, tho not realy a problem, as I didnt realise there was one untill I unpacked the toy.

It is now the weekend, so will have some time to play before spending money becomes an non option.

HP drivers,,,, the Hp4 drivers can be hard to find, I think I have them some where (along with a C64,128, printer, monitor and floppy drives. Thats another story but)

Much as I usually hate Belkin stuff, their All-in-one wireless print server works pretty well for multi-function printers. You can happily plug/play and just print IPP/RAW/LPR to an IP socket, or install the client-end software in order to use the other functions.

You say you can see your printer over the network - how exactly is it connected to the network ?

Does the printer sit directly on the network or is it connected to your xp machine and shared ?

If it is a shared printer on another machine the problem you are probably encountering is due to the vista user context changes. i.e. by default vista will run you as a simple user until you wish to perform an administrative function e.g. add a driver at which point it will ask you for permission to switch to the administrator account for the operation.

This can cause security related problems when adding a shared network printer. The reason for this being that you must have an authenticated connection to your remote machine (the one that has the printer) to be able to print. Normally connecting to a network share on the remote machine will resolve this problem however it will not with Vista in the first instance because of the context changes as your vista login may authenticate fine but your vista administrator account may not.

The issue can be got around quite simply by forcing an authentication to the remote machine under the vista administrator account - to do this you need to map a drive to your remote machine as administrator. To do this follow the following steps on the vista machine: -

1. Log into vista as normal.
2. Go to the start menu - type in CMD so the dos box icon appears in the list.
3. Right click on the CMD icon and select Run as Administrator and confirm you wish to allow this.
4. At the prompt in the newly opened window type: -
Replace RemoteName above with the name of your machine the printer is connected to. LoginName should be the name of the account you use to log into that machine (the remote machine) and <password> would be the password you normally use with that login. T: is a drive letter that is free on your machine - you can change this to a letter that is free if T: is already in use.

Once you have the command completed successfully message try adding the printer - it should now not have any authentication problems and you should be able to print a test page from the printer control panel.

If you have any problems with the above let us know - if you have a true network printer please provide more details as to how it is connected and what interface it is using.

If after installing the printer you wish to clean up you can type the following to remove the networked drive (replace t: with whatever letter you used if you changed it) by: -

Cheers

Jof

That is a different approach, thanks Jof. I wouldnt have thought of mounting a printer as a drive. Will give it a go and see wot happens.

The printer is shared on an XP desktop, I did have an IP 2000 that worked fine, just the new MP240 being troublesome.

Avtrician,

Your not mounting the printer as a drive in my example, what it is doing is mapping a drive to the C: partition on the xp machine ( the default administrative share under xp for C: is named C$) - by telling XP who you are for authenticating the use of the shared drive, XP will recognise who you are when you go to use the printer.

I forgot to mention by the way for you to use the administrative share C$ you must use a username/password combination that has administrative rights on the xp box.

Cheers

As a less complicated method, try plugging the printer into the vista PC and getting it to work directly, then after you can attempt to solve its network issues.

Download Bonjour from the Apple site and see if this fixes the problem. Use Generic Postcript printer as driver in the drop down menu.

Ended up going the Hardware option, got a Dlink hub with a usb printer port. 2 way information doesnt work, but the printer is now going. (Lost the use of the scanner but, but not a problem as a stand alone scanner is connected.)

Scanner
 

Your scanner might still work. My issue was HP, but it might be similar with Canon?? Following a problem - an HP software download which mucked up my printer/scanner/copier and my pc, after much resolution work, eventually got most things working, but my scanner stopped performing from the scanner end. i.e. Press "scan" at the printer/scanner, and nothing happened. My set up is XP(3). Under control panel, printers and scanners, despite many attempts to "recognise" that there is a scanner attached, it denied that there was one. Anyway, I chose to ignore this and decided to live without the scanner. Then school age daughter demanded that we have a scanner.....
Re-downloaded HP software - by then knowing how to deal with its nasty side effects - and found that even though the pc still denies that a scanner exists, from within the HP software I can actually cause the scanner to scan. Maybe Canon might be similar?
If not, please excuse/ignore my drivel.

Unfortunately no, the Network usb thingy doesnt support bi directional info for a start, and this printer is not supposed to be used in this manner. Next time I will get a networkable machine.