XP networked printing

Anyone happen to know the trick to sharing a printer across the network in XP so that non-admin users on the client PC can print to it?

I've got two machines at home running XP pro, one with a (%$#^ing awful) HP inkjet attached; I can share the printer on the one PC and then print to it over the network when logged in as administrator on the other - but it doesn't show up in the printer list to non-admin users on the 'client' machine.

Note that I can happily read/write files on the print-host PC from the client PC, no matter what the user, so the problem seems to be specifically with the printing, rather than some "nobody but admin can access this box" security setting.

Any ideas? I'm mostly (and happily ;) clueless these days when it comes to Windows problems, but googling has left me none the wiser...

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules Richardson
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From technet..

To change or remove permissions for a printer

Open Printers and Faxes.

Right-click the printer for which you want to change or remove permissions, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.

Click the name of the user or group whose permissions you want to change or remove.

In Permissions, click the Allow or Deny check box for each permission you want to allow or deny, if necessary. Or, to remove the user or group from the permissions list, click Remove.

To view or change the underlying permissions that make up Print, Manage Printers, and Manage Documents, click Advanced.

Reply to
dennis

Hope you get an answer to this. I use and like HP printers, but their s/w is crap. Nick.

Reply to
Nick

I have no ideas except that googling for this in terms of "networked printing" will probably not help; to me that implies a network-addressable printer, ie one with its own LAN cable & IP address.

I think you mean "printer sharing" - if the printer is physically attached to one of the PCs.

One drawback of printer sharing in the latter way is that presumably to print from the PC that doesn't have the printer attached to it you need the other PC to be running as well.

You might find the simplest approach - assuming your HP inkjet doesn't have a network port - would be to get a standalone network print server box and plug the printer into that. Some router/firewalls have a printer port specifically for that purpose.

Reply to
Jeremy Nicoll - news posts

Well, it's all just set to simple sharing right now - which might *be* the problem, although I'd be surprised if simple sharing lets a non-admin user write to a shared folder yet doesn't let a non-admin user print... (OTOH it is Microsoft!)

Actually, I think that simple file-sharing is all that there is in the non-pro versions of XP, yet a quick google suggests that it's still capable of sharing a printer - so on that basis it *should* be OK as it is.

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules Richardson

ell it certainly possible to set that up. XP supports full group and user privileges.

It can share printers. However I recall some drivers asking if stuff should be installed for all users or just the person installing them. The instructions were for the client so you could check what permissions were set.

Reply to
dennis

In article , Jules Richardson scribeth thus

Q..

Is this a network printer thats one with an Ethernet socket on it or one where you have the printer connected via USB or centronics cable to a PC?

We have a HP with ethernet thats plugged into the network switch and any PC print's to it fine 'n dandy..

Reply to
tony sayer

It works for me, sharing an XP shared printer with XP, Vista and 7 PCs. It was a pain finding and installing the drivers for Vista and 7, but once installed it works just fine. Can't help with the how or why.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

I've has this working happily on W2k in the past. The print share is very similar to a network share, with similar permissions. I can't tell you the XP equivalent ATM, but it should be similar to W2k:

Rt-Click My Computer Manage Shared Folders Shares Double-Click Pr>

Reply to
Java Jive

It might sound obvious but have you installed the printer drivers on the client? It won't work otherwise

Reply to
Toiler

USB into the one PC; there's no Ethernet port on the printer itself.

Reply to
Jules Richardson

Yes - and there's no problem printing as administrator from that machine; it's just when logged in as a non-admin user that the printer doesn't show up in the client machine's printer list.

It seems like there are some permissions screwed up somewhere, but finding where might be tricky as of course being Microsoft it's supposed to automagically work but then when it doesn't it's a complete flippin' nightmare. :-(

The workaround at the moment is to just copy files to a share on the server and then walk over to it and print from there, but it would be nice if it worked as it was supposed to.

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules Richardson

In message , Jules Richardson writes

Start/help & Support/Printers & Faxes.

It's all about sharing permissions.

I used to run my previous printer that way but can't remember the setting up details. You will need to install the drivers on every client.

Reply to
bert

The pragmatic solution would be to by a cheap printserver and stick the printer straight on the network and not fuss with solving the actual problem! (IME some of these can take some time to track down!)

It might be worth trying to reset all the normal security settings to their defaults. You can do this on XP SP3 machines with:

secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb /verbose

Reply to
John Rumm

Jules Richardson posted

Here's something that worked for me:

If User Account Control is disabled on the computer, you cannot install a network printer successfully. This problem occurs if the network printer is hosted by a Windows XP-based or a Windows Server 2003-based computer. However, I have found a consistant fix to connect to any network printer from vista: Run a command prompt and type the following: net use LPT2: \\servername\printer This sets up a behind-the-scenes connection to the printer. Then go through the add printer wizard, choose to add a local printer, and choose port LPT2... It will probably ask for a printer driver, and you can just choose whatever XP driver you might have been using before. The printer is then installed without any errors, and works just fine. From poking around, it seems when the error appears that the driver is actually installed, but something between it being installed and it actually being added to vista's list of printers breaks. Doing the above just works though.

Reply to
Big Les Wade

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