Printer Sharing From XP to Vista

Recently I purchased a new notebook that runs vista, while i have 3 pcs that run xp. My central pc is hardwired to a wireless router that the rest of my comps run off of. All of these computers can access and use the printer and share files. On my new notebook, i can access other computers files but not access the printer. When I try to connect to the printer an error message that states "Access Denied" appears. Any suggestions?

 

Where is the printer connected?

Have you installed the printer in the notebook? (add a printer and look for the printer in the network).

 

the printer is connected to the main computer which is hardwired to the router. I have installed the drivers onto my notebook, but upon printing my notebook is "unable to communicate with the printer." If i go through the wizard and look for the printer on the network, I can successfully find the printer but am unable to connect do to the access denied message.

 

I see, right click on the printer from your desktop and select share and that it can be used by other people in the same network, I'm assuming that both computers are in the same workgroup.

One question, though, why don't you connect the printer to the router? This configuration is better because this way you can still use the printer when your desktop is off.

 

Wirelessman's advice is good - if you're going to keep the printer attached to the desktop, then you need to set the desktop up to share the printer with the network.

On top of that, if you haven't already done so, you should download the Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Responder from Microsoft and install it on the XP-based systems. As MS describes in KB922120, without the LLTD Responder, _Vista machines have a lot of trouble properly "seeing" XP machines on the network. It's possible that, if the desktop with the printer is running XP without the LLTD Responder, that your _Vista notebook simply cannot "see" the desktop itself, and doesn't "know" how to get through an "unseen" obstacle to get to the printer. The LLTD Responder can be d/l'd from here.

 

@wirelessman - the printer is several years old and does not have a ethernet port, therefore I can not directly connect it to the router.

Thanks for the help shyster1

 

If the printer has a USB port, you could connect it to a separate print server. Wired print servers are pretty straight-forward; for example, Netgear provides the PS121, which allows you to connect a USB printer to a wired ethernet network. In addition, there are also wireless print servers. Netgear offers the WGPS606 which, in addition to having USB ports for 2 printers, can also act as a wired-to-wireless access point for one or more computers (i.e., you wire them into the print server, and they can then access your wireless network). I've been using the Netgear WGPS606 for about 6 months now without any serious problems (although the setup instructions are rather opaque - I'd suggest just calling Netgear setup support immediately instead of trying to work through the instructions). In addition, if you have a multifunction printer, the Netgear wireless print-server seems to play nice with the broadest range of multifunctions - I've now got access to the fax and scanner functions of the brother multifunction that I plugged into the WGPS606.

Lots of other companies offer both wired and wireless print servers as well - I just picked on the Netgears 'cause that's what I happen to use.

 

Print servers are nice, as long as you can live without bi-directional communication. Print servers also require the computer to be connected to the printer to install the printer drivers. I've only found one print server that had bi-directional support and didn't require the computer to be connected to the printer: the Keyspan US-4A USB server. You might want to check it out.

Regarding the XP/Vista printer sharing: in addition to installing the patch described above, you should create identical users/passwords on all of your computers. Windows sharing functions work much better when there are identical users.

 

Or get yourself a wireless printer hub (D-Link), your printer USB cable would connect into the hub, and the hub would connect directly into the router. The nice thing is that you can print through the router, and also through the wireless link if you have a wireless card on your computer.

 

I've been able to install the printer drivers for the brother multifunction I have attached to a Netgear wireless printserver without having to connect the computer directly to the printer. I am also able to utilize the scan function and fax function of the multifunction through the wireless print server.