Printer connect

Hello, I have an issue I need some help with.

Customer brought their home laptop into office and they have a desktop on the network. They also have a LOCAL printer that they are trying to connect to both the NON-network laptop and the NETWORK desktop.

They both print when connected to only either the desktop or laptop but they do not work when connected to both desktop and laptop via a USB hub at the same time. There is only a serial connection on the printer, no USB.

So the printer is connected to the hub and then a USB cable goes to both laptop and desktop, only one will print at a time. Anyone know how to get both to print without having to unplug and switch cables all the time?

 

A USB hub is not a hub in the way an ethernet hub is a hub. A USB hub is used to share multiple devices with a single PC. The do make a USB SWITCH, to share a device between computers.

Hub allows you to connect more devices to a USB port.

"A USB switch allows two or more computers to easily share a USB peripheral such as external hard drives, printers, and scanners. "

http://www.iogear.com/usb-switch.htm

 

Thank you foogoo!

 

The easiest is to connect the notebook to the local network. But of course, that raises all sorts of security concerns for the notebook, and other devices on that network.