help with sharing printers

  • Thread starter Thread starter mike
  • Start date Start date
M

mike

i have a small network at home and I have set it up so all
the computers connect to the internet through one
computer. I have two printers hooked up to this computer
and would like to share then to the other computers on the
network, but none of the other computers can access the
shared printers or folders on this computer. I set the
printers as shared, does anyone know what I can do to
allow my other computers to access the printers?
 
mike said:
i have a small network at home and I have set it up so all
the computers connect to the internet through one
computer. I have two printers hooked up to this computer
and would like to share then to the other computers on the
network, but none of the other computers can access the
shared printers or folders on this computer. I set the
printers as shared, does anyone know what I can do to
allow my other computers to access the printers?
Click to expand...

I assume that you are running ICS on the gateway PC, and that
all client PCs are getting their IPAs from DHCP, but you should
check by running WINIPCFG on W9x or IPCONFIG/ALL on XP: for
IPA=a.b.c.d, a.b.c should (typically) be the same for all and
the d's should be unique.

Make sure all PCs have the same workgroup name, and that each
has a unique computer name.

Permanently disable ICF on all XP PCs, and temporarily disable
all other firewall software and all AV apps. It is tricky to
totally disable some of that stuff, and it may be necessary to
uninstall some.

It is usually best to only run TCP/IP and to run NetBIOS over
TCP/IP, so disable NetBEUI and IPX/SPX if they are enabled.

You need to have ClientForM$Nets and F&P Sharing enabled.
Next, create a non-root folder with a short simple foldername
and a short simple sharename, then try to map a net.drive from
each PC to each other PC's share. Always try to get file
sharing working before printer sharing, since file sharing
only requires M$ software (and a working network path), while
printer sharing depends on software from the printer vendors,
and some of those printer vendors are not very interested in
making sharing work for their products.

If you are still stuck, try PINGing. For each PC pair, try
ping-by-number in both directions, then try ping-by-name. If
ping-by-number works but ping-by-name fails, it indicates a
DNS problem, so compare the DNS settings of bad PCs with those
from good PCs.
 
Bob,
I just got my hard-drive/folders and printer sharing
to work by installing IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible
Protocol on a two computer XP-HE to XP-HE
configuration. (See my post XP to XP Networking
for 10/16)

In your post to Mike, you state:
"It is usually best to only run TCP/IP and to run NetBIOS over
TCP/IP, so disable NetBEUI and IPX/SPX if they are enabled."
On my XP systems, it seems that IPX/SPX are coupled to
NetBIOS in such a way that they can't be disabled. What do
you recommend with that situation?

All of that notwithstanding, of greater concern to me now is
that, from the client machine, access to the host's resources
either via Network Places or Windows Explorer is "grease-
lightening-fast", while trying to display Network Places from
either the desktop or Windows Explorer takes up to a
minute or more to access. What do I need to do to resolve
that? (the host is a 2.4 GHz and the client is 1.8 GHz coupled
with an Ethernet cross-over cable.)

The LAN Connection Properties on the client has the firewall
option enabled showing the firewall option box blank (firewall
disabled). The ICS host machine LAN Connection Properties
has the firewall option box and description "grayed out", i.e.,
option not available.

Norton Internet Security and AntiVirus 2003 is enabled on
both machines.

If I can get the host to client performance problem resolved,
I'll be as "happy as a clam", hahaha. (I have no idea where
that saying came from nor how happy clams are?)

Bill Stanton
(e-mail address removed)
 
Bob,
PS to my post of a few minutes ago:
The ICS firewall is enabled on the host. It may be that
Norton Internet Security's firewall is enough to protect
the LAN and that having both is the cause of the
performance problem on the host. Is that a possible
cause?
Bill
 
Disabling ICS firewall didn't improve performance.
Bill


Bill Stanton said:
Bob,
PS to my post of a few minutes ago:
The ICS firewall is enabled on the host. It may be that
Norton Internet Security's firewall is enough to protect
the LAN and that having both is the cause of the
performance problem on the host. Is that a possible
cause?
Bill
Click to expand...
 
Bill said:
Bob,
I just got my hard-drive/folders and printer sharing
to work by installing IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible
Protocol on a two computer XP-HE to XP-HE
configuration. (See my post XP to XP Networking
for 10/16)

In your post to Mike, you state:
"It is usually best to only run TCP/IP and to run NetBIOS over
TCP/IP, so disable NetBEUI and IPX/SPX if they are enabled."
On my XP systems, it seems that IPX/SPX are coupled to
NetBIOS in such a way that they can't be disabled. What do
you recommend with that situation?

All of that notwithstanding, of greater concern to me now is
that, from the client machine, access to the host's resources
either via Network Places or Windows Explorer is "grease-
lightening-fast", while trying to display Network Places from
either the desktop or Windows Explorer takes up to a
minute or more to access. What do I need to do to resolve
that? (the host is a 2.4 GHz and the client is 1.8 GHz coupled
with an Ethernet cross-over cable.)

The LAN Connection Properties on the client has the firewall
option enabled showing the firewall option box blank (firewall
disabled). The ICS host machine LAN Connection Properties
has the firewall option box and description "grayed out", i.e.,
option not available.

Norton Internet Security and AntiVirus 2003 is enabled on
both machines.

If I can get the host to client performance problem resolved,
I'll be as "happy as a clam", hahaha. (I have no idea where
that saying came from nor how happy clams are?)

Bill Stanton
(e-mail address removed)
Click to expand...

I don't use IPX/SPX, so I can't advise on how to or even if you
can unbind NetBIOS from IPX/SPX. If you want to try again with
just TCP/IP, here's how to bind NetBIOS to it under XP: Click on
Start, then on ControlPanel, then on NetworkConnections, then
right-click on your LAN, then click on Properties, then click on
TCP/IP, then click on Properties, then on Advanced, then on WINS,
then click on the radio button for Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP; M$
buried that radio button pretty deep.

Good thing that XP's firewall (ICF) is greyed out on your LAN, since
ICF inhibits F&P sharing on the LAN.

An obvious experiment is to disable Norton's stuff to see how much
performance they are costing you; if it matters, you can then play
with the controls to see which feature of which app is the cause.
 
Bill said:
Bob,
PS to my post of a few minutes ago:
The ICS firewall is enabled on the host. It may be that
Norton Internet Security's firewall is enough to protect
the LAN and that having both is the cause of the
performance problem on the host. Is that a possible
cause?
Bill
Click to expand...

Maybe a typo, but ICS is not a firewall - it is the software
routing package that lets your two PCs share a single modem
connection to the 'net.

When using ICS, your ICS host has two network connections:
one to the 'net (the WAN, may be DialUpNetworking or may be
a NIC to the DSL or cable modem), and a NIC to the LAN to
the ICS client(s). It is fine to run ICF (XP's firewall)
on the WAN, but not on the LAN, since ICF inhibits F&P sharing
on the LAN.

I don't use NIS, so I don't know if NIS+ICF causes a slowdown.
Easy enough to tell: turn them both off and see if you can tell
the diff; if so, the further experiments are obvious.
 
Bob,

I'll go through all of these steps Friday night and
let you know how things turn out.
Thanks, Bill
 
Back
Top