6 PCs - 1 Printer - Questions ? ? ?

Lets say we have 6 PCs (all running Windows 2000) and one printer, a Brother 9440 All-In-One. All 6 PCs are plugged into a switch via Cat5 ethernet cable; there is one cable from the switch to the printer. The printer is not connected to any PCs directly, just the switch (it might be a print server? I don't have all the details). How do I get the PCs to 'see' the printer?

 

I couldn't agree more, but it's not my decision to make. A real estate office has it set up this way (and has for quite some time). I did a bit of research on the Brother 9440 (take a look at the 'Network Users Guide' here http://www.brother-usa.com/SiteSearch.aspx?sk=9440) and it seemed pretty nightmarish, but I'm not a networking guy. Short of setting up simple small home networks of 2 or 3 PCs, I'm kind of lost when it comes to networking..... If using a print server, how do the PCs see the printer? Does one have to set up IP addresses for every PC? Somehow I don't think it's a matter of just plugging in a Cat5 cable and "BING!" a new device is detected as if it were plugged into a USB port or something
Thanks...

 

It may be easier to tie a printer to a local pc, but makes more sense if you want to stash a printer in one location say next to a copier, and not have a pc there, and not have to worry about said pc being turned on and what not. Lots of businesses go this way, infact we just redid our network setups at both resturants i work for to be this way.

 

Basicly you should go through the same add printer wizard you would for an attached printer, but it should offer a network printer option, or add by ip, and you put in the printers ip address.

 

2 scenarios here, either mate it to a local PC & share it out OR, print a config page directly from the printer, If it has it's own unique IP (which is preferred) then you can easily share it out that way.

go to the add printer part (read enough of your posts, you know how to get there), click on add printer\local\next (cause it won't find it) then on the next page click on the bottom "create new port" then on the drop down, "standard TCP\IP PORT", enter the IP address & install the driver (have it on a network resouce or the CD) & viola. easiest way for connecting networked printers

 

Thanks for all the input guys! I went to the office and was able to more-or-less get things working... they have a TrendNet switch (with all the PCs plugged into it) and it is plugged into a Linksys router. The router didn't have enough ports (only 4 and nothing in the office is wireless) so they went with a switch. The router was passworded and the guy I was dealing with didn't know the password to log in to the router; do we even need to log in to the router? The PC IPs are 192.168.2.101 thru 107 (or 108?) and we assigned (or tried to assign) .99 to the printer so it wouldn't get 'shut out' if new PCs are added to the network. However, we have a problem: if there's a power outage (and we get about 3 or 4 a year here due to wind or winter weather) the printer IP would be reset to .102 which would then knock out one of the PCs from the network. So, without knowing being able to log in to the router, is it possible to assign a permanent IP to the printer? (I can't remember if 'permanent' is the same as 'static' or 'dynamic'; like I said, I'm not a network guy but I'm learning). And if we can get into the router at some point, how do I assign .99 as the permanent IP for the printer?
THANKS!

(OH- we also had problems with most of the PCs not reading the install CD that came with the printer. Could this be due to user rights being restricted on most of the PCs? Out of the 3 or 4 PCs I tried the CD on, it only would read on one of 'em. If needed, how would I set up sharing the one "good" CD so the other PCs can read the install CD over the network?)

 

the router doesn't assign a static ip in this case, as more then likely your using a home user cheap type router, nothing professional grade which is fine. Reading the printer manual should show you how to assign a static ip to the printer. Just make sure, which it sounds like your aware of, that its not an ip that will be assigned via dhcp via the router.

 

I not going to repeat or comment on most of the good suggestions here I would like to add one point. After you have set up the printers on all the computers just go into the printer properties on each computer and set the memory to the highest available setting this will sort out any problems if a situation arises when a few people send large jobs at the same time.

 

Great tip! Thanks....