Wireless Printer with XP and Vista machines

OK, I need to post this before I fling my laptop, my printer or both out the window. I've been working on this off and on, mostly on, all day and I've had it.

I have an HP Media Center desktop running XP SP3 Media Center Edition, a brand new Brother MFC-6490CW wireless multi-function printer, and a Medion Akoya laptop running Vista Home Premium, a broadband modem and a Netgear WGR614v8 router.

My old printer was on its last leg so I thought it would be nice to get a wireless printer so I can print from the laptop which is being run wireless via the router.

The printer is connected by USB to the desktop, I configured it to recognize the router, then I installed the drivers & software to the laptop. Everything was working great for about a week, printed beautifully from the PC (cabled) and the laptop (wireless), I did some scanning, everything was fine. Then all of a sudden today I can't print from the laptop and I don't know what happened, nothing changed, I didn't install any new programs, I don't know what caused the problem. I can see all the devices from my the PC and the laptop. At one point my printer icon on the laptop said "ready" but the documents just qeued up but never printed. Now after uninstalling, reinstalling and changing settings (workgroups) now the printer is turned on but the icon says it's offline.

I've tried everything I can think of: workgroup names are the same on PC & laptop. I've uninstalled and reinstalled a "few" times, taken the printer back to factory settings and reconfigured it but no go, turned on sharing of printers, turned it off, nothing's working....I'm so frustrated I could scream. Can someone, anyone please help?

 

OK, just thought I'd post an update. I thought I'd go in and uninstall the printer ONE MORE TIME and then reinstall. I didn't do anything differently than the other 5 times I did it, but it's working again. I can print wirelessly from my laptop again......I'm thinking it was the Anatomy & Physiology ghost messing with me. :-D I have a big test this Tuesday and did not have the extra time to be messing with this but needed to be able to print. Go figure.

Anyway, thanks for reading and have a great day.