Solved my Vista/XP shared printer problem

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Guest

Both my printers, an HP Deskjet 895cse on LPT1 and a Canon Pixma ip5000 (USB)
are attached to my Vista desktop on a wireless network with 2 XP desktops.

I had Vista printer sharing turned on and both xp machines were seeing the
printers. When I tried to print a test page from either it would seem to
connect but nothing would print. In the case of the Canon the xp machine
even displayed a warning that one of my ink tanks was low on the Canon
machine, but still nothing came out. I had been successfully sharing these
printers before installing Vista.

I tried just about everything I read on these pages to no avail and decided
to simplify things as much as possible. So, this is what I did:

I shut off printer sharing on the Vista machine.
I deleted all printers on the xp machines and rebooted.
I turned printer sharing on again on the Vista machine.
I installed the printers on the XP machines by having xp search the network
in the printer folder when I chose to add a new printer, selecting the
printers (one at a time of course) from the list of network printers
displayed.

Now everything works. I am no techie by any means but my conclusion is that
the xp machines were looking for xp drivers on my machine that weren't there
and when I reinstalled them it added the Vista drivers they needed to print.
 
Both my printers, an HP Deskjet 895cse on LPT1 and a Canon Pixma ip5000 (USB)
are attached to my Vista desktop on a wireless network with 2 XP desktops.

I had Vista printer sharing turned on and both xp machines were seeing the
printers. When I tried to print a test page from either it would seem to
connect but nothing would print. In the case of the Canon the xp machine
even displayed a warning that one of my ink tanks was low on the Canon
machine, but still nothing came out. I had been successfully sharing these
printers before installing Vista.

I tried just about everything I read on these pages to no avail and decided
to simplify things as much as possible. So, this is what I did:

I shut off printer sharing on the Vista machine.
I deleted all printers on the xp machines and rebooted.
I turned printer sharing on again on the Vista machine.
I installed the printers on the XP machines by having xp search the network
in the printer folder when I chose to add a new printer, selecting the
printers (one at a time of course) from the list of network printers
displayed.

Now everything works. I am no techie by any means but my conclusion is that
the xp machines were looking for xp drivers on my machine that weren't there
and when I reinstalled them it added the Vista drivers they needed to print.
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting your solution.
 
I did try Network Magic though not with the printers because I didn't know
there was a problem with them at the time. I tried NM when I initially had a
file sharing problem and before I learned to add "Everyone" in the permitted
users list when I made a file/folder shared in a Private Network.

The problem with Network Magic is that when you take it out (I am not going
to pay $30 per year subscription fee for something I need only once - if it
were a one time purchase that might be another story) is that it resets
everything in such a way that you have to undo things to get them back to
what they should be. In other words, on its way out Network Magic says, "Oh
yeah, if you don't want to buy me then have fun fixing stuff yourself."
 
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