T
TM
I have one XP, two Vista and one Mac computer on my home network. The Mac's a
piece of cake but my kids' two Vistas are a nightmare for networking the
family printer, which is on my XP computer.
With suitable long evenings of tweaking permissions and pleading, their
computers eventually see the printer, but refuse to "Add Printer" as they
should. Firewalls are off, sharing enabled, permissions tweaked anew and
newsgroups read, plus hours spent rebooting and praying. But, every time I
try to add a shared printer on the XP computer, it sees the printer, then
tells me I cannot add it unless I install the driver. I click on "Install
Driver" and it hangs. Heaven forbid that it would even have the courtesy to
say, no, I refuse to install any driver for your stinking printer. It just
won't, and it won't apologise or explain.
So why don't I just download the driver and install it manually? Easy. Then,
in my administrator account on my daughter's Vista computer, it sees it and -
after installing SP1 - it finally says it's installed and it's the default
printer. That only took six months!
But wait. In my daughter's own account, the printer still doesn't exist and
it won't install!
I click again on "Install Driver" (which of course is already installed,
according to the same computer on my own account) and it refuses to do such
an impossible thing. How could I be so naive as to expect that? It just hangs
again. Another customer for Ubuntu.
When we first bought these two Vistas, we were stunned to find how
dysfunctional the networking was with XP, with layers of complexity and
permissions making it impossible for Microsoft to work with Microsoft. There
were other wacky problems such as popups telling me that certain "startup
programs" in my administrator account are "blocked" and I, the administrator,
don't have permission to unblock them, whatever the heck that means. Then
there's the new phantom non-existent computer which appears on our "network
computers" list - with the name of my son's computer plus the letters, "-OC."
I can't delete it, can't figure out who or what it is. It's a Vista
poltergeist.
But all I wanted was for my daughter to print her homework before I die.
Newsgroups told me to lie to Vista by claiming it was a "Local" USB printer
plugged into the Vista, not a "network" printer on the XP computer, which of
course it is. Great - although not a confidence-builder. Then, I was supposed
to configure the address manually, assuming I could figure it out the way
Vista wanted it (although it knew the address because it could see the
network printer - just couldn't install it. This wacky workaround worked,
after another evening of frustration.
Then, we waited for SP1, confident that Microsoft could not possibly fail to
fix a blunder so glaring that the newsgroups buzzed for months with other
victims clamouring for a solution.
We were all wrong. I've been on the internet since before it was invented
and am familiar with computers. I somehow set up networks in Windows 2000 and
Windows XP without going grey. But it's impossible for my daughter to print
her damn homework on my printer, now that we've "upgraded" her to this Vista
thing. Pitiful, isn't it? No wonder my son is installing Ubuntu...
And, yes, we use Windows Live One Care and we know it has trouble working
with Windows Vista. In fact, we're completely unsurprised by this absurdity.
But any guidance will be gratefully received.
TM
piece of cake but my kids' two Vistas are a nightmare for networking the
family printer, which is on my XP computer.
With suitable long evenings of tweaking permissions and pleading, their
computers eventually see the printer, but refuse to "Add Printer" as they
should. Firewalls are off, sharing enabled, permissions tweaked anew and
newsgroups read, plus hours spent rebooting and praying. But, every time I
try to add a shared printer on the XP computer, it sees the printer, then
tells me I cannot add it unless I install the driver. I click on "Install
Driver" and it hangs. Heaven forbid that it would even have the courtesy to
say, no, I refuse to install any driver for your stinking printer. It just
won't, and it won't apologise or explain.
So why don't I just download the driver and install it manually? Easy. Then,
in my administrator account on my daughter's Vista computer, it sees it and -
after installing SP1 - it finally says it's installed and it's the default
printer. That only took six months!
But wait. In my daughter's own account, the printer still doesn't exist and
it won't install!
I click again on "Install Driver" (which of course is already installed,
according to the same computer on my own account) and it refuses to do such
an impossible thing. How could I be so naive as to expect that? It just hangs
again. Another customer for Ubuntu.
When we first bought these two Vistas, we were stunned to find how
dysfunctional the networking was with XP, with layers of complexity and
permissions making it impossible for Microsoft to work with Microsoft. There
were other wacky problems such as popups telling me that certain "startup
programs" in my administrator account are "blocked" and I, the administrator,
don't have permission to unblock them, whatever the heck that means. Then
there's the new phantom non-existent computer which appears on our "network
computers" list - with the name of my son's computer plus the letters, "-OC."
I can't delete it, can't figure out who or what it is. It's a Vista
poltergeist.
But all I wanted was for my daughter to print her homework before I die.
Newsgroups told me to lie to Vista by claiming it was a "Local" USB printer
plugged into the Vista, not a "network" printer on the XP computer, which of
course it is. Great - although not a confidence-builder. Then, I was supposed
to configure the address manually, assuming I could figure it out the way
Vista wanted it (although it knew the address because it could see the
network printer - just couldn't install it. This wacky workaround worked,
after another evening of frustration.
Then, we waited for SP1, confident that Microsoft could not possibly fail to
fix a blunder so glaring that the newsgroups buzzed for months with other
victims clamouring for a solution.
We were all wrong. I've been on the internet since before it was invented
and am familiar with computers. I somehow set up networks in Windows 2000 and
Windows XP without going grey. But it's impossible for my daughter to print
her damn homework on my printer, now that we've "upgraded" her to this Vista
thing. Pitiful, isn't it? No wonder my son is installing Ubuntu...
And, yes, we use Windows Live One Care and we know it has trouble working
with Windows Vista. In fact, we're completely unsurprised by this absurdity.
But any guidance will be gratefully received.
TM