Connecting to Printer On Apple Computer Network

[AndeeG]

The topic kind of explains it... I have a PC, the rest of my family all have macs (2 imacs, 1 quad core powerpc, 2 powerbooks). There is one printer connected to my dad's powerpc and one connected to my mom's imac. All the other computers are able to access these printers but I'm not. Obviously internet works for me and i've never had to configure anything to create a network. All the computers are connected to a router, which is directly connected to the internet (fixed wireless). When I go to add a printer, it can never find one. What should I do?

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

I think you need to install TCP/IP support on the macs themselves. I thought macs used a different network protocol, which would explain why the PC couldn't talk to the macs. I'm not a mac person, but take a look at the printer properties, and perhaps share properties to see if theres a way to add an additional driver or protocol, so the PC can see them. I know under windows xp you can install additional drivers to support other network OSs (win 98/me usually), so perhaps there is something similiar in the macs.

Hopefully this helps a little, but if my information is off i will remove it if its just wrong.

 

[tyanni]

What OS are the macs running? How is the printer connected to the network? With a print server? Need more info.

Tim

 

[ryan256]

The macs are probably using appletalk or rendezvous. These are proprietary mac protocols and cannot be used by a PC. You can change the shared settings on the printer so it uses TCP/IP instead but you will probably have to change it on the macs as well. But.... like Tyanni said. Need more info plz. 🙂

 

[chcarnage]

The Rendezvous aka Bonjour protocol is open source and available for Windows.

Well I don't know if the printers use Bonjour or not because we don't even know which models they are but if the OP says that nobody ever had to configure anything it is at least possible.