Printer sharing problem

I'm hoping someone could help. There is probably an eazy fix.
I have a Vista Ultimate x64 machine with my old printer (canon i550) connected. I want to share that printer with another machine on my home network that is running XP x86. I go through all the wizards and I can share files. But when I try to add the printer in XP I keep getting the message: "The server for 'Canon inkjet i550 printer does not have the correct printer driver installed. Then I click on OK to search for the driver and I get "Windows cannot locate a suitable driver.

I have installed the Vista 64 drivers and the XP x86 drivers on the respective machines. I've downloaded the newest drivers from Canon and when I try to add additional drivers to Vista(the x86 driver), I'll direct to it and it gives me the error "The specified location does not contain the driver for the requested processor architecture." But it is the right xp x86 driver! I even installed the driver from the Canon disk it came with on the XP machine, hooked it up directly to the xp box and could print just fine. So the correct drivers are installed, but windows tells me otherwise when trying to connect over the network.

Thanks for any help.

Pete

I am having exactly the same problem, except the desktop machine with printer attached has Windows Vista Home x64 installed. This is extremely irritating, and I would also appreciate any insight which others could offer. I could not install the driver over the network so I downloaded the most recent from canon. I point XP to that driver when asked, and it says that it cannot use it! The Vista Home x64 machine is a new machine replacing an older XP machine, and I could share the printer attached to it across the network with no problems. The Vista machine came with free upgrade to Win 7 when released. Makes me wonder what kind of fun I am in for once I install that!

Scott

any one have a solution yet I haver same issue

I had the same problem and this worked for me. Even though my client is XP and the "printer-computer" is Vista it still worked like a charm. Just swap "XP" for "Vista" if that's the case.


"1. Make sure the XP drivers are up to date and make sure the XP machine is set up to share the printer. In other words it should have a share name like Canon4000.
2. On the Vista machine add a new printer. Tell Vista it's a local printer and use an existing port such as lpt1. Make sure you add the type of printer that is hooked up to the XP machine. i.e. Canon Pixma IP 4000 for example. Click next. Don't print a test page because it wouldn't print on anything at this moment. So click finish.
3. After Vista successfully adds the new printer highlight it and right mouse click and select properties.
4. Click on the ports panel.
5. Click on add a port
6. click on "new port" .... not to be confused with "new port type"
7. It will then ask you to enter a port name. You must enter the name of the xp computer followed by the shared printer name on that computer. So if my wife's computer is called Ann and her Canon printer is shared as Annscannon then your port name will look like this:
\\ann\annscannon
8. If possible turn on bi-directional printing."


After installing printer on client machine (Step 2) I disconnected it and plugged it back into the "printer-computer."
Also, around Step 5, when you add a new port, I added a "Local Port."

Hope this helps you too!

kevin