xp to win7 & printers are lost

  • Thread starter Thread starter njem
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njem

First I would post this to windows7.work_remotely if I could find it.
Where does one find the equivelent of these forums for W7?

I had a system connecting remotely to an xp station. We had local
printing working. Now that station is W7 64-bit. When we set up the W7
station it immediately recognized the two printers, didn't have to
load drivers. The station we're connecting to has xp drivers for these
printers. But now when the W7 station connects to the xp station we
get the error that the xp station doesn't have drivers for the
printers. How do I get around this? To clarify, W7 station has the two
printers connected to it, and it is the initiator that controls the xp
station.

Thanks
 
njem said:
First I would post this to windows7.work_remotely if I could find
it. Where does one find the equivelent of these forums for W7?

I had a system connecting remotely to an xp station. We had local
printing working. Now that station is W7 64-bit. When we set up the
W7 station it immediately recognized the two printers, didn't have
to load drivers. The station we're connecting to has xp drivers for
these printers. But now when the W7 station connects to the xp
station we get the error that the xp station doesn't have drivers
for the printers. How do I get around this? To clarify, W7 station
has the two printers connected to it, and it is the initiator that
controls the xp station.
Click to expand...

So - if I understand you correctly - Windows XP is acting as your "Print
Server"?

Install the printers directly on Windows 7 and map them after that?
 
So - if I understand you correctly - Windows XP is acting as your "Print
Server"?
Click to expand...

No, we're talking remote desktop connection here. W7 system at home
with two printers connected to it, controlling an xp station at work.
Used to be an xp system at home too but now it's W7 64-bit. When I
connect remotely to the xp station at work the xp station used to show
my local printers and let me print stuff at home. Local printing is
turned on in the local resources of RDP. The xp station has xp drivers
for these printers. The W7 station has whatever drivers came with W7.
But the printers don't show up on the work computer under the lis of
printers I can print to and if I look in event viewer it says it
doesn't have drivers for those.
 
It greatly helps if you spec make/model of hardware devices when asking
questions like this.  What types of printers are these?
Click to expand...
HP 5940 and Brother MFC6540.
So install the drivers for the printers in XP.  Or re-install them if
necessary.
Click to expand...
I will reinstall them just to say I've done that but nothing has
changed about the XP end of things.
I do recall there being extra steps necessary, back in the w2k days, to add
printers drivers to the printer 'server' machine to support various other
client machines.  I don't know if that's still necessary or even possible
with win7 and xp.
Click to expand...

It is possible and has to be. Although you're talking about a
different situation. If a system is sharing a printer and wants
various win versions to be able to simply use "connect" then the host
has to have multiple drivers on it. This really has nothing to do with
my situation since the system being controlled is the one that has to
process printer info and that's the xp station and it has had the
drivers for this for some time. Just the same it occured to me too out
of desperation to try that. Unfortunately when W7 asks me to locate
the driver to install and I point it at the CD with the xp drivers, it
says it doesn't find the right file. I pointed it at every
subdirectory on the CD and it didn't find it. That was for the HP
printer. Then I tried the same thing for the Brother and it did the
same thing. So W7 may have a separate problem loading drivers for
other versions of windows.

I have looked on tech net before I came here to ask. Nothing there.
 
njem said:
HP 5940 and Brother MFC6540.

I will reinstall them just to say I've done that but nothing has
changed about the XP end of things.
Click to expand...

Install the driver for that printer on the W7 system, as if you had such
a printer attached.
It is possible and has to be. Although you're talking about a
different situation. If a system is sharing a printer and wants
various win versions to be able to simply use "connect" then the host
has to have multiple drivers on it. This really has nothing to do with
my situation since the system being controlled is the one that has to
process printer info and that's the xp station and it has had the
drivers for this for some time.
Click to expand...

No, this -does- have to do with your situation. Even though you think
the XP system is controlling the printer because it has the printer
attached, when you remote to the W7 system, the printer actually is
being controlled by the W7 system. So the driver has to be there on the
W7 system in order for you to print while you're remoting. Think about
your drives when you remote: they show up in the remote system but not
the same way they do locally, because the remote system has to recognize
them under its own OS.

You won't likely find the drivers on the CD that came with the printer,
of course. Go to the manufacturer's website and see if there are W7
drivers for that printer; if so, download & install as if the printer
were locally attached to the target system itself. Then when it goes
looking for that type of driver, it will have it & match up.

It gets much trickier if you can't find a W7 driver for your printer,
though. There are ways to get it to use a Universal driver, but that is
complex to implement in a single-system scenario as opposed to Terminal
Server.

I don't see any newsgroups for Windows 7 at all, surprisingly. But this
is a question that would apply in Terminal Server as well, or in a Vista
forum, since the same issue comes up if, say, you tried to do this with
Vista instead of W7.
 
No, this -does- have to do with your situation.  Even though you think
the XP system is controlling the printer because it has the printer
attached
Click to expand...

I knew it would be confusing talking about who is remotely controlling
who and who has the printer. It is the W7 station that has the
printer, and it is controlling the XP station. That's why the previous
comment didn't seem to apply.
 
There's also ways to set up a printer 'manually'.  Basically overridingwhat
the automatic negotiation process is attempting and using something else
instead.  I recall having to do this on an older model HP LaserJet.  It took
a number of steps to set it up.  Once to install the drivers locally, again
to set up a network port and then a time or two more to change the driver
and port being used.   Bit of a hassle, to be sure.
Click to expand...

I think you're talking about something similar to what I do sometimes
when needed, create a new printer, something win knows about
automatically, like generic text, and install it as a print-to-file
printer. That gives me a new printer and now I can change the driver
to any that are installed, and I can change the port to any available.
If it's a network printer I can create a new network port to IP or a
name.
 
njem said:
I knew it would be confusing talking about who is remotely controlling
who and who has the printer. It is the W7 station that has the
printer, and it is controlling the XP station. That's why the previous
comment didn't seem to apply.
Click to expand...

OK, but you still need to do the same thing: install the printer
(driver) on -both- systems. When you go from XP to XP, the driver is
going to be present & the right version for both systems. But when you
have a different version of Windows, you need to make an appropriate
driver available for both sides.
 
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