Vista Home Premium too selective...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dr. Dos
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Dr. Dos

Vista Home Premium too selective...
I have a small LAN with a network printer and
three XP Pro computers and one Vista Home
Premium computer.
All run through a WiFi/Ethernet access point,
some hardwired and some via WiFi. This internal
network uses assigned tcp/ip addresses (static
ip's). The network is stable and everything has
worked nicely for years, until now.

The Vista and XP machines can access each other
via Windows Explorer, so the LAN network is
intact and working.

The problem:
1) The Vista machine stopped communicating with
the network printer. After several printer
re-installs, the Vista control panel printer
function printed successful test pages, but no
application will print.
The test and setup utilities for the network
printer, which gets direct access to the printer
via the network, identify and can configure the
printer, even as the applications report errors,
such as "unable to initialize printer" or show a
blank, empty page when viewed in print preview.

2) I cannot ping the printer in DOS, nor can I
navigate to/access the printer via the browser
with the Vista machine. The XP machines can both
ping and access this printer (it has function,
status and setup pages). However, the Vista
machine will ping the XP machines, and ping and
access/open the access point, and even the dsl
modem.

I have turned off the firewall, but it makes no
difference.

Since everything "used to work," I am at a loss.
Any ideas?
 
Try to reset printer as local printer first and then re-map them as
networking printer. Or this search result may help.
Vista Print Issues
May 27, 2007 ... Solved: Vista print Error 0x00000866. Resolution: 1.
Add a Local Printer and then create a new port pointing to the shared
printer. ...
www.chicagotech.net/vista/vistaprint.htm


--
Bob Lin, Microsoft-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on
http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on
http://www.HowToNetworking.com
 
Bob said:
Try to reset printer as local printer first and then re-map them as
networking printer. Or this search result may help.
Vista Print Issues
May 27, 2007 ... Solved: Vista print Error 0x00000866. Resolution:
1. Add a Local Printer and then create a new port pointing to the shared
printer. ...
www.chicagotech.net/vista/vistaprint.htm
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'll try this.
 
Bob said:
Try to reset printer as local printer first and then re-map them as
networking printer. Or this search result may help.
Vista Print Issues
May 27, 2007 ... Solved: Vista print Error 0x00000866. Resolution:
1. Add a Local Printer and then create a new port pointing to the shared
printer. ...
www.chicagotech.net/vista/vistaprint.htm
Click to expand...

What I have discovered is quite strange and NOT
related to Vista. The network printer is
connected to a hub/Ethernet switch. That switch
is hardwired to a wifi router. Two other
computers are also connected to the Ethernet
switch. They run XP, but that is irrelevant to
the underlying issue.

All networked equipment have static addresses in
each network setup and on the wifi access
point/router. DHCP is also turned on (just in
case of....?)

The network printer is "green" and goes into
standby mode after a set time.

When the printer goes into standby, the wifi
router apparently loses connectivity with it.
When the printer comes off standby, the wifi
router does not recognize it. However, the
Ethernet hardwired computers, all sharing the
same hub, find the printer and all seems normal.

Another wifi'd computer, running XP, also loses
contact with the printer once the printer drops
to standby (same problem I originally complained
of, pointing a finger at Vista).

Once the printer goes standby, it cannot be
pinged or viewed in a browser from the wifi'd
computers, but CAN be pinged and viewed from the
hardwired hub sharing computers, and comes back
on active when a print job is sent to it.

Turning the printer off and then on again solves
the problem. Not so convenient from another floor!

The only idea I have is to remove the printer's
static status from the wifi access point and see
if dhcp will re-find it when it drops to
standby. Standby only shuts off the fuser
element, but not the electronics, so this is
doubly weird.
 
In an ideal world your router would assign the network printer an address
just as it does the computers.
In the real world you often have to manually configure the address on the
print server, or at least find out what it is and manually enter it into the
machine that will not ping the network print server. That address also has
to be one in the range the router recognizes.
Why does Vista randomly misbehave when other networked OS machines are
stable?
Why does one random (never the same one twice in a row) wireless Vista unit
refuse to connect to the router unless the router is rebooted although other
wireless units, including Vista units, are communicating
flawlessly--something I see almost every frigging day in some random Vista
wireless unit but have never seen with an XP wireless unit?
I can't wait to pay for Vista SP3, I mean Windows 7.
 
trouble said:
In an ideal world your router would assign the network printer an address
just as it does the computers.
Click to expand...

My Networked printer has a static IP address - how else can machines print
to it?

In the real world you often have to manually configure the address on the
print server, or at least find out what it is and manually enter it into
the machine that will not ping the network print server. That address also
has to be one in the range the router recognizes.
Click to expand...

See above - I have never seen a print server that uses DCHP......always a
static address.
Why does Vista randomly misbehave when other networked OS machines are
stable?
Click to expand...

No problem with it here.....
Why does one random (never the same one twice in a row) wireless Vista
unit refuse to connect to the router unless the router is rebooted
although other wireless units, including Vista units, are communicating
flawlessly--something I see almost every frigging day in some random Vista
wireless unit but have never seen with an XP wireless unit?
I can't wait to pay for Vista SP3, I mean Windows 7.
Click to expand...

Maybe you have some hardware issues?
 
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