XP to Vista printer sharing

[Ksyder]

I'm not sure if this belongs in networking or not but if it is please move it mods. XP home edition has Dell 920 inkjet printer, and is enabled for sharing on network. Vista home basic laptop can see it, but printer test page fails, says "can't communicate with the printer." I know this is a common problem, just wondering if anyone around here knows about this one?

 

[corkyg]

I have two printers and three computers. All printers are accessible to all computers, 2 of which are Vista. You have to acvtually install each printer on all three systems as "Network Printers."

 

[Ksyder]

You have to acvtually install each printer on all three systems as "Network Printers."

When you install the driver it asks whether you want to install it locally or for the network. In the case of the Vista laptop, I had to install the driver in the network mode because in order to install the driver fully the printer usb cable had to be plugged into the laptop. I could see the printer over the network and it seemed to create a "port" to the printer via \\machine_name\printer_name but it would say "can't communicate with the printer".

The dell forums discuss this issue but nothing I could find there actually solved my problem.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Vista 32-bit?

When you install a shared printer on one of your Vista computers, it pulls the driver from the XP Home machine, and it might cause problems.

I'd try downloading the Vista 32-bit driver from dell, extract the content and use that driver on the XP machine. If that driver also works for XP, then everything should be OK when adding the printer on the Vista machines.

 

[corkyg]

OK - Vista is fussy about sharing. I have both printers installed on my XP desktop. Then in Control Panel, under Properties for those printers, you have to check the "sharing" box. If not, they can be seen by Vista, but not accessed.

When I installed the printers on the Vista laptop, I did so as Network. I did not have to plug in to the laptop. Sharing was in effect and they installed.