Printer sharing on XP/Vista home network

[kenrum]

I have a desktop and now a laptop connected via a Netgear router. Desktop via RJ45, laptop via wireless. Desktop XP, laptop Vista.

I have setup a network using the XP wizard on the desktop and both computers can see each other and can access the shared files without problem.

I have also configured the printer connected to the desktop to be shared. It is visible to the laptop and is selectable when carrying out a print operation. The print comand is accepted without error message and if you open the printer dialogue box on the desktop the print job does appear very briefly in the queue but the printer never starts. The windows firewall is set for file and print sharing, and the printer itself is set for sharing.

Any ideas? Does the laptop need Vista drivers installed? Drivers where seemingly installed across the network during the setup procedure but these will be the XP drivers.

[johnwill]

Yep, you should install the Vista drivers, then create a new Local Port with the full network name of the printer on the XP machine. I find that automatically installing the drivers from XP doesn't work for a lot of Vista installations.