Shared printer problem

Hello everyone I've got a question concerning a new laptop that I just purchased, I am trying to share my printer with this new laptop and I'm having some trouble I think I am close but no cigar yet!

So this is what I do: I do this when I go to share my printer with my laptop



I do this when I add my printer


I then browse for "Printer2" which is the share name


I then type in "Printer2" in the name box but it doesn't work!


Thinking this might work I type in the actual name of the Hp computer but to no avail it still doesn't work!


It says Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server."

I am truly lost on this one I have a wireless pc and a wireless laptop but not a wireless printer so I'm trying to avoid a print server as I've heard that they are sometimes finicky..................anyone have any ideas?

Peace :cool

James

 

Hi James,

Disable the Firewalls on both PCs, run the Add Printer and Faxes network wizard again and then re-enable the Firewalls once it has found the printer.

Steve

 

Hey what's up Steve?!, I'll try this as soon as I get back....gotta eat........one more thing when I do this, will I type the share name which is "Printer2"?

Thanks

James

 

Yes, I think so.

Steve

 

Hey Steve, I went in an disabled both firewalls on each individual computer to no avail........same problem with the same messages as before, I know it's probably something simple but I still can't figure it out.

This person mentioned doing this but I don't know where on the computer to find a www. anything? ie: an ip address with something saying Printer2 I think.

I still have that sharename of "Printer2"........any ideas of how to do this?

 

See if the links below help. It could be the name, you might need to "add" what kind of printer you have in the name . You will see what I'm talking about in the links.


http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/honeycutt_july2.mspx

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000904.htm

Steve

 

Ok I'll check out these links when I get off from work tomorrow and will report back the results.......thanks!

 

Hey Steve I finally got around to trying the links you provided for me, the 1st one you gave me I tried initially before putting my question on "MG's" and the 2nd one didn't do anything but give me the same old prompts. A guy at Compusa was telling me that I should install my printer via cd on my laptop (which I haven't done yet), but I was under the impression that this is what I was trying to avoid?..............maybe if I do this then I will be able to to the "share a printer" thing?, what do you think?.

 

I have our printer here setup to share with the laptops but it has been so long since we configured all of it, I can't remember what steps we took. I know this isn't much help but been awhile since I did any "home networking".

See if this How-to gives you anymore info. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1596

Steve

 

James,

I just went thru and checked some of my stuff, I have the printer software installed on "all" the computers here.

Steve

 

Hey Steve,

This link looks like it should do the trick, one more question............and that is do I have to actually unhook the printer from my pc and then hook the printer up to the laptop to install the hp cd, or can I just go ahead and install the hp cd on the laptop without bothering to hook up the printer?, if that sounds right.

Just curious as I was looking at the HP setup poster for the printer and in the setup wizard example it showed that you had the option of "check here if you would like to continue without plugging in the device"............I'll probably try this in a few days Thanks!

 

I didn't hook my printer up to any of the laptops......I remember that much.

Good luck James, hope it works.

Steve

 

Cool man I'll report back in a few have a good one!

 

Well after a couple of hours wrestling with this thing I've made some progress, in fact I thought I had this thing licked...........but I was wrong here is what happened.

I still had the exact same problems after reading the tutorial frontwards and backwards several times over, but something I hadn't thought
about came to me and that was that I was using my laptop's computer name instead of my pc's computer name that should of fixed the problem and it would have if I hadn't of forgotten to disable my Norton Firewall............and when I did instant success!!!!!!!

It was short-lived though as when I tried to print on the laptop it said "status couldn't connect to the printer" even though the printer connected to my pc is the default printer on my laptop.......I'm stuck again......how do I get my laptop to connect to the printer?, I thought it was supposed to be connected as soon as the printer wizard was over (and no I didn't turn off my pc either)

One very strange thing I noticed that is kinda worrying me is that I'm unable to access the HP Director on the laptop, basically all it does is allow you to scan pics, documents, make copies, and view and print. These things may be related in my inability to connect to the printer via laptop.......any suggestions Steve?

 

I just noticed this is a "new" laptop, does it have Vista installed? If so, try the steps below.

Steve

 

Steve the laptop I have is "Visa capable" but has "Windows XP" installed on it, it also has Internet Explorer 7 (which I don't like) but that's another thread!

We got the laptop with "XP" to not have to deal with any software issues or otherwise.

Peace :cool

James

 

OK.

The only other steps I can think of are make sure you have the name correct, as the example \\basement\epsonsty

Double check everything with the Norton Firewall........both computers.

1 Start Norton Internet Security.
2 On the Norton Internet Security tab, click Settings.
3 Click Personal Firewall, and then click Configure.
4 In the left pane, click Trust Control.
5 On the Active tab, click the printer network.
6 Click Trust...
7 In the Properties window, type the description of the network.
8 Click Allow file sharing on this network (recommended).
9 Click OK.
10 Click Apply > OK.

Also James, see this link for the HP Director issue, http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c00802504

Steve

 

Hey Steve I'm assuming I would do steps 1-10 on my pc, or would I do the same thing on the laptop as well?.........just curious as you wanted me to double-check the Norton firewall on both computers, just want to make sure I do the right thing.

I'll do these things in a bit, and thanks for the HP Director issue link!...........I wonder how painless it is to go to Internet Explorer 6 if Internet Explorer 7 was initially installed on the laptop?

I'm thinking that I have the name correct in using my pc's computer name as if I didn't it wouldn't work in the printer wizard would it?, would this be right or am I missing something?

Peace :cool

James

 

You will like IE7 once you get used to it I think, just a little different at first.

I guess I have gone by the setup guides or something I read when doing mine because using the printer name is all I have done. Don't know if it would work another way.

Steve

 

Steve I started doing steps 1-10 but didn't get far, this is how it went.

I clicked on settings


I then clicked on configure


I then clicked on Trust Control


And finally when I clicked on the Active Tab this automatically came up, my wireless address (which I erased for posting purposes)


I didn't see the place where I "click on the printer network" after clicking on the "Active Tab", I thought it may be that I have Norton Internet Security '07 that it is in a different place.

But maybe you can see something that I'm overlooking from the screenshots, thanks

Peace :cool

James

 

Try under Trusted.

Did it work "once" with NIS disabled, then stopped working?

Steve

 

Ok Steve this is what I'm looking at, I'm guessing I click on "add" but when I click on it what description do I put in........the laptop's computer name and the printer name?


I never could get the printer to print from the laptop, and I never tried to print with the firewall disabled......I will try that.

Peace :cool

James

 

I would try with the firewall disabled first.

Steve

 

James,

I just found this, looks more like what you are seeing. http://hdsurvivor.blogspot.com/2006/11/norton-internet-security-2007-setup.html

Steve

 

Well I guess the wireless address that I used initially was the wrong one, I used the IP address (start, run, cmd, ipconfig) and that worked or so I thought. I tried printing with the firewall on...........and no luck!, I then disabled my firewall but didn't connect to the internet to print, what I did was go to the sample pics in my folder and printed from that. And to my surprise the "printer wizard" again appeared, and so I again went through the same procedures again to ensure that this time the laptop was indeed given rights to access the printer.

All the other times I tried to print the printer would say "could not connect" but this time it said "ready" boy was I happy about that!!!!, I don't know how the laptop wasn't given printer rights before, I guess something happened and I didn't click something I don't know, anway it works now.

Just for verification, now that I can print from the laptop, when away from home the pc won't be at risk will it?, I guess what I'm trying to say is that since the laptop and pc are connected now, other computers can't sneak their way in if I take the laptop away from home and connect to a public wireless say at a library, can they? all of this may sound silly but I want to make sure nothing "strange" happens.

I got the HP Director driver installed and it works perfectly as well!

Thanks so much Steve for your time and patience!


Peace :cool

James

 

Well Steve, I may of celebrated too soon, here's what happened this morning I was browsing on the pc and decided to install some software on the laptop as I was surfing the net.

I then went to print a picture from the laptop and guess what?..the only one selected was the image writer and it asked me if I wanted to "add a printer" , I then went on to disable both firewalls again and type the computer name and printer name and it's back up again and I can print from the laptop again ....why did it do that?, I know that I read that both computers have to be on at the same time and they were........I'm lost again.

James

 

Just an update, I remembered that I was trying to print from my wife's account on the laptop and the printer wasn't showing up.

So I thought that maybe I had to install the printer on her account also, so that's what I did and now it shows that the printer is available on both mine and her account alike.

Now the problem is that when I try to print on either account it says "unable to connect" even though it shows the printer is installed and check-marked as the default printer..........still trying to figure out what's going on.

James

 

Do you have the XP firewall disabled on both the computers?

Steve

 

Yes I just checked, and both the windows firewalls are disabled on both computers, if I remember right Steve when I installed Norton it automatically disabled the Windows XP Firewall....oh yeah and also the laptop still says "unable to connect" on the status of the printer even though it's still is available.

Peace :cool

James

 

James,

Sorry for the delay, I wasn't on much over the weekend.

I have read over it twice and cannot figure out what we are missing, probably something simple.

If you are sure that everything in the setup is correct and the printer is recognized, I don't know what is blocking it. Could the HP software (HP Director) be causing the problem? Maybe start from "scratch" with the HP and NIS software disabled/off and see what happens.

I'm gonna look around for some troubleshooting info.

Steve

 

No need to apologize Steve I'm just glad to get any type of help and advice you can give as I'm in the dark on this one (as I usually am but this one more so than others) , but yeah I've gone over and over in my mind about the setup procedures and so forth and I'm pretty certain I did everything right??.....

You're right, it's probably something simple but on the HP Director.......how would I disable it?, I mean it is part of the cd software that I used to install the printer driver, I don't know if I can disable it without completely removing the printer driver itself I did see that there is an uninstall feature for the HP software, and I take it that means the whole thing.

Peace :cool

James

 

Yeah you are probably right on the HP software. I am not familiar with it so don't know exactly what all it does. Just trying to think of something to try.

Steve

 

Hey Steve I found this I don't know if this is what's causing the problem as both the pc and the laptop have my wife's name differentiated by a 1 after her name on the pc and a 2 after her name on the laptop......could this be the problem?

James

 

I started to ask you how you found that and then I noticed the VAIO Help and Support. Might be worth a try.

Steve

 

I'll try this but which one would you change the pc computer name or the laptop computer name?........it says I may be using a name that already exists and the pc was here yrs before the laptop so..................

James

 

Laptop.

Steve

 

Ok getting ready to try it in a few minutes.

James

 

Ok it still wouldn't print from the laptop....... it still is check-marked as available but unable to connect. I was thinking though that when I went into Norton to give trust control for the laptop that both computers had the exact same IP addresses, is this normal?

I may try like you suggested initially Steve, and that is to disable Norton once again but should I go ahead and go through the printer wizard again if it indicates that the HP printer is "available" on the laptop.

One more thing, if by some chance the IP addresses are the culprit how do you go about getting 2 seperate ones?.....

James

 

I think both can have the same IP address if you're behind the same router. But, I am not sure.

This is really getting into "networking" which I know very little. I don't know what else to suggest. We are missing something simple, I'm sure.

I never look in the Networking section of the forum, that might be a good place to start a thread and link them to this one...........unless you get another reply with something else to try.

Steve

 

Ok Steve I'll try the Networking section next..........well man you got me this far ......I'm like you....it's gotta be something simple!

Thanks again!

Peace :cool

James

 

James,

Just something I found real quick in the networking forum, http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=126648

You might try the program (Network Magic) mentioned at the end.http://www.networkmagic.com/product/

Steve

 

Hey thanks Steve I'll read this link and follow these intructions, gotta get ready for work now but I'll hold off on posting this in the Networking section until I try this............once again Thanks....and maybe this time we'll get it!

Peace :cool

James

 

Ok. Best I can do right now.

If you decide to try the program, which might work, be sure to notice any changes in settings it makes because it might not be much help after the free trial period runs out. Know what I mean?

I guess, just pay attention to what it does.

Steve