Printer Sharing Won't Work On MurPhil's Home LAN

  • Thread starter Thread starter Murphil
  • Start date Start date
M

Murphil

I have high speed Internet thru a cable modem connected to the WAN port on my
router (i.e. physical Fire Wall). 2 PCs are connected to the LAN ports on the
router to form a private home network. One of the PCs is a new Windows Vista
Home Premium PC that has a local inkjet printert connected directly to it via
a USB connection. This printer works very well in response to print requests
from the Vista PC. The other PC is an "old" Windows 98 PC that is located in
a different room of the house and has its own local inkjet printer connected
to the PC via a serial connection. Each PC can see the other one over the
LAN, including shared files and the shared (Vista) printer. It really works
like a charm. However, I can not seem to get printer sharing to work over the
LAN. I've configured the printer on the Vista PC for network sharing (without
password control), and the Vista seems to acknowledge this by showing the
printer as a shared device. Strangely, the Win98 can "see" the shared Vista
printer on the LAN, but it is unable to get this printer to print anything. I
haven't done anything else, such as install the software for the Vista
printer on to the Win98 PC. Any attempts to print to the Vista's printer from
the Win98 PC, over the LAN, gets no response - not even an error message.
Although, the print job does seem to appear in the print cue (which I have to
delete manually every time it refuses to print). Any suggestions for getting
the shared Vista printer to print from the Win98 PC, over the LAN, would be
very much appreciated.
 
You stated in your post that you have not installed the printer software on
the 98 computer. I think the software for the Vista printer has to be
installed on the WIN98 computer (if possible) for the printer work properly.
You might want to try that.
 
Thanks for the response. I believe I did try that once before - a few months
ago - and it didn't work. I'll try again, anyway, and let you know.
 
As you suggested, I tried to install the driver for the Vista local printer
onto the Win98 PC, but it still won't work. Note that I didn't try to install
the Vista local printer onto the Win98 PC - it's already installed on the
Vista PC - but rather, I tried to install the DRIVER for the Vista's local
printer onto the Win98 PC. I assume this is an important distinction!? So
then, I tried to install the driver for the Win98 local printer onto the
Vista PC, and it appears that the Vista operating system won't allow me to
install a driver for a printer that is physically connected to another PC.
Actually, it tells me that the driver is already installed, even though it
doesn't appear to be, and I still can't send print jobs from my Vista PC to
the shared local printer on the Win98 PC. The odd thing is that I was able to
successfully set up both printers as shared printers on my LAN, and I can see
both printers (as shared printers) from both PCs, via the LAN. It's just that
I'm not allowed, for some reason (?) to send print jobs from either PC the
other PC's shared local printer. Is it possible that the more "secure" Vista
PC is blocking the passage of any and all print jobs between the 2 PCs? Or is
it simply time to seek professional (expensive) help!?
 
I had to install the printer software on my Vista for the printer to work.
Maybe that was to know which drivers it needed. Are the printers added? If
by "see" the shared printers, you mean on the network, then perhaps the
printers need to be "added".

I had the same problem, but with a Vista laptop and WIN XP computer. The
printer was connected to the XP computer. Apparently, Vista can only add a
network printer as a local printer. Here's what I did to fix it:

Go to Control Panel. Choose printer. Then choose Add Printer.

Choose Add a local printer. Click on Create a new port. The default in the
drop down box is Local Port. Do not change that. Click Next.

A dialogue box will appear asking for you to enter a port name. Type in the
\\computer name\printer name.

If this does not work, then I cannot help and I am sorry.
 
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