Need some printer sharing help

Need to share a printer connected to a desktop running XP with a laptop running Vista. The printer is set up to be shared over the network, but the laptop cannot access the printer. When on the laptop I click Network then Add a Printer then click Add a network... I can see the printer under the select a printer screen (//computername/printername) but when I click it I get an error message the says "Windows cannot connect to the printer Access is Denied". I have done some searching but cannot find a solution, any kind of help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

FYI Both computers are running some form of Norton Internet Security, if that is pertinent information.

 

I had no problem printing from my Vista 64 Laptop to the printer connected to my XP Desktop, which is the same configuration you are going for.

Are you able to share the printer with other computers, just not the Vista one? If you have another computer on the network that can connect this could be a good starting point for diagnosing the problem.

First make sure both computers are on the same network using different system names. If each computer has the same name it could try to connect to itself instead of the networked computer. In other words, the WORKGROUP field on your "Computer Name" tab of the System Properties must be the same but the "Full Computer Name" field must be different on this same tab between the two PC's. If the computer name is the same for both PC's it could likely generate this access denied message.

Make sure you have file and printer sharing enabled, and that this printer is specifically marked to allow printer sharing. Even if file and printer sharing is enabled but this printer is not specifically marked to be shared you will not be able to access it. Under the printer properties these options are on the "Sharing" tab.

Lastly, check your printer drivers. Old drivers may not have the neccessary device support for the Vista laptop to connect to it. If everything mentioned above looks good I would check out some driver updates. Be prepared to roll back just in case there is an inadvertant effect on the system.

 

Also make sure that the PC that the printer is connected to is on,it will not connect and print if the PC is off or in sleep/hibernation.

 

Thanks for the help. Everything you said seems to be in order, including the drivers, but still no go. I do not have another computer to check from. I did actually plug the printer into the laptop and everything set up and worked fine, including sharing to the desktop. So I am now even more confused than I was because I can share the printer from the laptop to the desktop, but cannot share it from the desktop to the laptop. Go figure. Any more help is wanted and appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Check the firewall settings on the XP machine.

 

Thanks to everyone for your help. After much searching I finally found the solution. For future reference the setup used on http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7589_102-0.html?forumID=62&threadID=232132&messageID=2421069 worked wonderfully.