Sharing printer

i know there r some threads on here about this read them already

my situation is that that i have (2) Vista HMP SP1 Laptops and (1) XP Pro SP3 Desktop and a HP Deskjet 5900 series on the XP Desktop. Im trying to share the printer on my network

-i have printer sharing turned on
- all pcs have the printer drivers
- the XP desktop and this Vista laptop can see every pc on the network and can print

now i have one other vista laptop that can see the other vista laptop but cannot see the XP Desktop everything is on , on the vista laptop sharing , printing, network discovery, disabled firewall but it just wont see the XP desktop ,and vice-versa

i installed the printer on one vista laptop and everyone can print
i just want to know why i cannot see the XP desktop on the second vista pc and why the Xp desktop cannot ssee it as welll.

 

Is the .Vista machine that can't see the XP machine on the same network?

What OS is the .Vista PC that cannot see the XP machine?

 

1) Ping the computer for connectivity

2) Make sure it is on the same workgroup

 

Yes its on the same network and its vista home premium SP1 x32bit

yes all pcs are on the same workgroup and how do i go about pinging the computer for connectivity?

 

You ping the computers for connectivity by either using the computer name or it's IP address. So if you go on the .Vista laptop and go to Start-->Run and type cmd and hit enter then type hostname and hit enter. That is the name of the computer. Then type ping "computername" w/ out the quotes. You should see a Reply w/ the IP address of the computer.

Now go to the XP machine and open up command prompt and type ping "ip address" of the .Vista machine. You should see a Reply...if it says Request timed out, then it's possible that a firewall program may be blocking the ping packets...and may also be blocking file and printer sharing!

Which leads me to a quest. What antivirus/firewall program(s) are the XP and .Vista machine running.

 

well the XP machine has Comodo , Avira ,Spuerantivirus and malwarebyte and come to think of it i think windows firewall is activated as well but in WF i have activate file sharing. Now the vista machine has Norton.

 

WoW...that computer is full of security...darn! Okay, this is what i'm thinking...you normally need to install THIS on an XP machine in order for .Vista computers to see them. But there are two reasons why you shouldn't need it. 1) SP3 should have this update pre-installed, and you said the XP machine has SP3. 2) The other .Vista computers on the network can see the XP machine. So what i'm thinking is the Discovery service may be disabled on the .Vista computer. Go to a computer that does see the XP machine and look at the Network Interface Card's Properties. The section where you can manually set an IP Address. In that box look at all that's there and enabled. Then compare w/ the .Vista machine that is not working. Now I don't use .Vista so I can't gve you proper steps as to what i'm talking about.

Did the ping test in my above post work?

 

let me just say thanks you've been a great help so far
first i did install what you told me to and network discovery is enabled on the vista pc . now i did the pinging thing and everything went throught with this vista laptop and the xp desktop 0% lossses on both computers but, when i ping the second vista pc (the one with all the issues) on the Xp Desktop result: request timed out 100% losses ...when i ping the Xp desktop on the second vista pc it goes throught 0% losses.

one more thing when i ping the vista pc #2 "ping computername" i get general failure y is that.

 

Okay, I'm a bit confused here. Let's just deal w/ the XP and the .Vista machine that's at fault.

Can you ping the XP machine from the .Vista machine w/ the issue successfully?

What about the other way around?

*I never heard of the error general failure! But do this....go to Start-->Run and type services.msc and hit enter. Look for these services and make sure they are set to automatic and started. DNS and DHCP Client services and most importantly the Workstation service.

Edit: And did you by any chance compared the Network Adapter settings I was trying to describe above? I've uploaded the image of the section I was referring to but it's XP. It will look similar in .Vista. Compare these settings w/ the other .Vista machine to make sure each has the same features enabled...and that they have the same amount listed line for line.

 

yes i did ping the xp machine and this vista laptop (laptop #1) im using and they were both successful both way.
Did the services.msc thing and they both are listed as automatic and started.

and yes i did compare the network cards and i places an image for u to see the first image is the pinging where i got general failure , the next is the image of network card of this vista pc im using which is working perfectly and the other is vista pc #2 network card which gives all the problems.

 

Are you positive that the last image is the one w/ the issues and not the one that's working fine? If that's the case I don't know what the issue is. Now if you tell me the one w/ the issue is the second image, then I will tell you to take out the check from "Symantec Network Security...." and try again.

Edit: BTW, what method do you use to see the XP machine and vice versa? Network and Sharing Center? Try connecting to each other by using the IP Address in Start-->Run \\ipaddress and hit enter.

 

the second image works fine sees all computers on the network and can print on the shared printer that is connected on the Xp desktop. the third image is the computer with the problem, the one that cannot see the XP desktop.
to see the computers on the network i go straight to network in vista and the computers are listed, or i move to network and sharing center and click on view map and vista has a beautiful map of all the computers on the network.

 

What happens when you do a Start-->Run \\ipaddress and hit enter?

 

I suggest temporarily disabling all your firewall programs and try again

 

I will say this...if it's not a network issue; meaning, the computers are on the same network and they have proper IP Addresses assigned to them. Then it's a definite Firewall issue IMO. Because after all, they can't ping each other...My final suggestion is to uninstall the antivirus/firewall programs from the .Vista machine. Disabling them is not good enough...trust me..I know. When you uninstall them the entries are removed from Registry. Doing this will rule out the Firewall being the issue. And please...turn off Windows Firewall if it's on...you already have a ton of protection already!

Good Luck!

 

ok thanks will let you know the end result later.

 

makaveli72.. let me just say thank you man for all you help i uninstalled norton and everything works perfect every pc sees each other and all can print using the same printer that is installed on the Xp desktop. you are the man thanks soo much man , mush rep to you , u've made my sis soo happy now she can stay in her room and print her school stuff now she will stop bothering me everyday thanks man

 

lol...okay

Glad I was able to help. There should be an option to allow file and printer sharing in Norton though...I used to use it..so you can re-install and see if it still blocks it OR use a different antivirus/firewall program.