Printer sharing on home network not working
Last response: in Networking
Hi, I hope someone can help. I've done a lot of searching into this, it appears to be a fairly common issue but so far nothing has fixed it. Here's the deal:
I just moved in with my girlfriend to a new appartment. We have cable internet hooked up to a wireless router. My PC and PS3 are attached via cable while my gf's PC is running wirelessly via a USB wifi adapter. Everything works fine in this regard. I can access my PC as a "media server" on my PS3 and on my gf's PC.
The issue is that we're trying to share a printer. Since it is my gf's, it's hooked up to her PC. We've both enabled printer sharing, disabled passwords, allowed access and all that. Her printer appears on my PC and I can access it's properties and the like. However, I simply cannot print from it. If I try to print a test page, an error pops up but troubleshooting doesn't resolve it. If I try printing from, say, MS Word, nothing pops up it just goes through as if it worked but again nothing will be printed. We're at a loss here.
It seems the important info is that she's on Vista 32 and I'm on Win7 64. All my searching has brought me to the conclusion that there's some wierd incompatibility here and nothing I can do about it, but maybe someone can help. The printer is a Samsung SCX-4300. I've tried to install both 32 bit and 64 bit drivers on my PC. I also downloaded the printer's little app (forgot the name) and if I open it, it doesn't seem to reconize any printer. Also when installing the drivers it doesn't detect a printer but I guess that's all because it's on the network. As I said, the printer does come up when I go to "Add Printer" and then I can select my gf's printer and it all goes swimmingly, the icon appears and is selected as the default printer... Any help?
I just moved in with my girlfriend to a new appartment. We have cable internet hooked up to a wireless router. My PC and PS3 are attached via cable while my gf's PC is running wirelessly via a USB wifi adapter. Everything works fine in this regard. I can access my PC as a "media server" on my PS3 and on my gf's PC.
The issue is that we're trying to share a printer. Since it is my gf's, it's hooked up to her PC. We've both enabled printer sharing, disabled passwords, allowed access and all that. Her printer appears on my PC and I can access it's properties and the like. However, I simply cannot print from it. If I try to print a test page, an error pops up but troubleshooting doesn't resolve it. If I try printing from, say, MS Word, nothing pops up it just goes through as if it worked but again nothing will be printed. We're at a loss here.
It seems the important info is that she's on Vista 32 and I'm on Win7 64. All my searching has brought me to the conclusion that there's some wierd incompatibility here and nothing I can do about it, but maybe someone can help. The printer is a Samsung SCX-4300. I've tried to install both 32 bit and 64 bit drivers on my PC. I also downloaded the printer's little app (forgot the name) and if I open it, it doesn't seem to reconize any printer. Also when installing the drivers it doesn't detect a printer but I guess that's all because it's on the network. As I said, the printer does come up when I go to "Add Printer" and then I can select my gf's printer and it all goes swimmingly, the icon appears and is selected as the default printer... Any help?
More about : printer sharing home network working
dont know if this would make a difference but are you both on the same WORKGROUP?
also open your network connections folder and click on your local area connection.
then click the properties radio button. Enable printer sharing or w/e its called (cant check i am at work). and do this for both pc's..oh did you do this already??
hope this helps man!
also open your network connections folder and click on your local area connection.
then click the properties radio button. Enable printer sharing or w/e its called (cant check i am at work). and do this for both pc's..oh did you do this already??
hope this helps man!
arg... MS made sharing stuff more of a pain in the A$$ than it really needs to be... XP, 2clicks and your done... From what it sounds like, vista is not allowing the print request through, but your PC sends it and thinks that it has been sent...
For starters, I would always make the desktop the print server and do an IP reservation in the router. That way you can print/map by PC name or IP and either way it will not change...
but for starters I would hook your PC directly up to the printer and see if you can even install it and print to it... if you can then its a vista sharing issue... if you can't then there is your answer...
Post up if you can print to it, I can then find some good links to send you... lol, but im not going to research it till I know you can print to it..![:)]( ":)")
2nd hope this helps out!
For starters, I would always make the desktop the print server and do an IP reservation in the router. That way you can print/map by PC name or IP and either way it will not change...
but for starters I would hook your PC directly up to the printer and see if you can even install it and print to it... if you can then its a vista sharing issue... if you can't then there is your answer...
Post up if you can print to it, I can then find some good links to send you... lol, but im not going to research it till I know you can print to it..
2nd hope this helps out!
Related ressources
- Printer Sharing within Home network - Forum
- Sharing Printer / Home Network with Win7 and XP - Forum
- Sharing a printer between 2 computers on a home network - Forum
- Starting a home network/printer sharing ? - Forum
- Basic home network question- sharing printers - Forum
For me, it looks like a firewall problem. Have you tried to disable the Windows Firewall or any third party firewall on your gf's computer? On my Windows network, I have to disable my Comodo Firewall in order to have network printing to work. After that, I moved my printer to a NAS and everything works perfectly.
Thanks for all the replies. Firstly, we are on the same workgroup.
Second, I have not physically plugged the printer into my Win 7 PC yet so not sure, I'll try it tonight.
Not sure what you mean by having to have a password. There's an option to enable or disable it, so I disabled it. I can access my PC music files from anywhere (my PS3 and my gf's Vista PC).
As for firewalls, that's what I thought at first. My PC uses Norton but my gf has Bit Defender. However, we did try disabling all the firewall stuff and didn't work (although I'll admit I don't know bit defender so maybe I missed something).
Second, I have not physically plugged the printer into my Win 7 PC yet so not sure, I'll try it tonight.
Not sure what you mean by having to have a password. There's an option to enable or disable it, so I disabled it. I can access my PC music files from anywhere (my PS3 and my gf's Vista PC).
As for firewalls, that's what I thought at first. My PC uses Norton but my gf has Bit Defender. However, we did try disabling all the firewall stuff and didn't work (although I'll admit I don't know bit defender so maybe I missed something).
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