Printer network ?

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by Decapad, May 14, 2009.

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  1. Decapad

    Decapad Registered Member

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    Hello - hope you can help. I have 3 pc's & 2 printers at home. 2 pc's are upstairs sharing 1 printer - they both run on XP. Sadly had to replace my downstairs pc yesterday & it runs on Vista - (which seems to me to be the same except it questions your commands 2 or 3 times)....but that's another story. Now I am having trouble getting the pc's to print on either the upstairs or downstairs printers like they did before when they were all XP. Now I did some basic troubleshooting and still am having errors. My question is - Is this worth the effort to get this to work or are the compatibility issues between XP & Vista so daunting it's just not worth trying? Any insights & tips would be greatly appreciated! Thank you, Deca:)
     
  2. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    Hello,
    what printer do you have and what error messages do you get?

    i had the same sort of problems when i first tryed to connect to the printer connected to my xp machine with my vista machine but managed to get it sorted.
     
  3. Decapad

    Decapad Registered Member

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    Hello Iodore, well - I first attempted to have Windows search for other printers on network - it came up empty saying "printer was not listed". So then I went to Microsofts help page here & went to step 4: (More from me after step 6 below)

    want to add a printer, but it's not offered in the Add Printer Wizard.
    If Windows can't detect a printer that you want to use, follow these steps to find and add the printer manually:


    1. Open Printers by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Hardware and Sound, and then clicking Printers.

    2. Click Add a Printer.

    3. In the Add Printer Wizard, select Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer.

    4. On the Choose a network printer page, click The printer that I want isn't listed.

    5. On the Find a printer by name or TCP/IP address page, choose how to find the printer that you want to use, based on the type or location of the printer, and then click Next.

    6. Complete the additional steps in the wizard, and then click Finish.



    So after I did this - I did get the other printer to show up in the Printers folder from the control panel - it prompted to directly download the drivers from the other printer - which I did. But when you go to actually print something - it doesn't work, I get an error message that the printer is not responding.

    So that's where I am - let me know what you think the next thing to do would be - Thanks very much of course! Deca:)
     
  4. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    can you see the other computers on the network on both computers?
    on vista start,network
    on xp, erm control panel,network connections,my network places,view workgroup computers.
    what make and model of printer and what security software have you got installed?
    is there any error codes or messages other than printer isnt responding?
    I will try to help tomorrow getting rather late here.
     
  5. Decapad

    Decapad Registered Member

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    Hello again. The Vista pc shows all 3, The XP pc's upstairs do not. The printers are both Epsons - a a cx5800 & a cx7000. The only security I use is Avast AV. No other error codes pop up really. Thanks again for your help! D:)
     
  6. YeOldeStonecat

    YeOldeStonecat Registered Member

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    Location:
    Along the Shorelines somewhere in New England
    It depends on the printer being shared. Vista is quite different from 2K/XP. With 2K/XP/2000server/2003server...you could share the printer, then browse to that share from another workstation on the LAN, and select "Connect"..which would pull the drivers from the host machine doing the sharing and install them on the machine you're sitting on. \\HostPCname\printersharename

    The drivers across the above OS's listed were compatible.

    But with Vista..for "most" printers, the drivers are completely different, they cannot install and use the drivers from the 2K/XP/2K3 host machine. This sucks for business networks with 2K or 2K3 servers and some Vista clients.

    If you have a networked printer connected with the network with a print server (MIO or JetDirect, etc)...it's an IP printer, and you can install from the Vista client as a local IP printer and have no issues.
     
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