XP Home to XP Pro - Printing Issue

Hey Guys,
Hopefully somebody can help me out here. I have looked online for a solution, but haven't found anything reliable yet.

Here's the scenario:

I have a customer running XP Home on her Laptop. She has a Desktop PC with XP Pro. There is a printer on the desktop pc that is shared. Everyone can print to this printer. I browsed the network to the desktop pc and installed the printer on the laptop. It then asks her for the proper login username and password. She enters the same login info that she uses to get into her desktop. She can then print just fine all day.

When she turns the laptop off, it makes her go through the entire process again. The printer is still showing up under the printers, but it says access denied.

Does anybody know of a way to get these two to talk to each other all the time? The printer has the Everyone group assigned to Print/Manage Documents.

This is very irritating to her because she is not a computer person and calls me everytime it does this to walk her through the steps again.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

 

Hello,
You don't need to install the printer on the laptop. If it's installed on desktop and shared, all you need is to print. That's what I do on my home networks. Of course, you must connect the two computers to the same workgroup.
If you need details, tell me.
Mrk

 

That's actually not totally correct. The printer is physically connected to the desktop pc. Bother computers are on the same workgroup. The printer still has to be installed on the laptop to copy the correct drivers/etc. over and provide a path for printing. It will print just fine as long as I input the correct credentials every day, which is what i'm trying to find a way around.

Thanks though

 

Hello,
Well, I'm talking from actual experience:
Two PCs, one running Pro, one Home, cross-cabled, ICS/NAT, same WG.
Printer Lexmark E232 connected to Home and ONLY there are the drivers installed.
Whenever I wanna print on Pro machine, I simply print.
That may be your problem. If drivers are installed also on laptop, and whenever you connect to desktop, it may think it's connecting to the device... for the first time and needs configuring, kind of when you plug a usb device.
So try without drivers on laptop....
Telling you, first hand experience, several such setups, works fine.
Mrk

 

I understand what you are saying but to be able to print over a network to a shared printer, you must first connect to that printer. Upon doing so, it requires you to install the correct drivers. If you don't, it will not print properly. I have networked tons of printers and pc's together, so this isn't my first attempt at this. All other computers in the office can connect to this computer just fine and print, but the laptop running XP Home is where the problem is.
My setup is just fine, it has to do with Permissions assigned between XP Pro and XP Home.

Thanks

 

Hi Capp, From experience also, when I was reading your scenario I thought why is the printer installed on the laptop if shared on the network.

 

The printer is installed on the Desktop computer via USB. This is then shared for all users.

The laptop is on the same workgroup.

When you print to a networked printer (either through a shared printer or from a print server), it installs the print drivers on that system so it can actually print. When you first install a printer on any system, you are required to install the drivers, whether it be automatic through windows, or from a disk). Anytime a different computer uses that printer, the drivers are copied to that machine so it can function properly. Then, when that computer clicks Print, it sends the print spool via network to the computer that hosts the printer and it spits it out.

This thread has gotten off topic. I didn't mean for it to be a lesson on network printing.

I just wanted to see if anybody knew any tweaks within XP Home/Pro that would allow the laptop to keep its credentials.

Would the Net Use function accomplish that? Such as:

Net Use LPT1 \\DesktopPC\Shared Printer /Persistant:YES

Thanks

 

One thing that might work is to assign the desktop a permanent IP address. Then build the printer to that address, not the computer (name). This is what I had to do recently at our office. The path ended up being something like \\192.168.1.1\Shared_Printer After doing this, I have had no further incidents.