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General discussion

cant find printer

by nicklaus Mar 8, 2009 1:49PM PDT

I have a Desktop and a Laptop that are both running XP Home w/service pak 3 installed. I have 2 printers attached to the desktop and I want to be able to print to one of them from a laptop. I shared the printer I want to print with. I can print wirelessly using a different laptop running Vista Home, but I have tried several times to install the shared printer on the XP laptop with no luck.

As Im going through the procedures to "add a printer" I select "A Network printer, or a printer attached to another computer"

The next window that comes up asks What printer do you want to connect to? I select Browse for a printer. It then tells me it is searching for a printer and that search times out. However, there is an icon in the window that says Microsoft Windows Network with a plus sign to the left. I know from experience that a list of printers should be showing there, but there are none. Trying to expand the plus sign doesnt do anything either. Im lost as to what else I would need to do. Ive been able to connect to a printer on a desktop wirelessly before, but no Im stranded.

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Can you just browse the network to the shared printer,
by Steven Haninger Mar 9, 2009 8:30AM PDT

do a right click on the printer icon and select "install"?

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no icon
by nicklaus Mar 9, 2009 5:03PM PDT

If I had the icon for the printer showing up, I could get it to install. It isnt even showing any shared printers even though I know its shared because I can access it from another Laptop that is running Vista.

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Can you browse the network from the laptop
by Steven Haninger Mar 9, 2009 11:32PM PDT

and see the desktop at all? If not, something in the network setup isn't right. I'd try creating a shared folder on the desktop PC and see if you can get that to show by browsing from the laptop. If you can't, we'd have to look at basic network settings such as IP addressing, firewalls...especially 3rd party ones...etc.

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