Windows 7 access to a shared printer on XP

I am having what seems to be a very common issue - Windows 7 computer unable to access a shared printer connected to an XP Home machine.

I have tried tried several of the "fixes" suggested in this forum but no luck.

Here is the configuration. I have an HP printer connected to an XP Home machine.

The printer is shared and I can access it from another desktop (XP Home) connected to the local network via a cable and a laptop (XP Professional) connected via a wireless connection.

I have another Windows 7 laptop (Lenovo X61 tablet) where I am having trouble. First, I can see the computer and printer in the networking section. When I click on the printer to access it I get an "Windows cannot connect to the printer, Access is denied"

I have gone through the procedure of installing a printer on a local port using the configuration \\hostcomputer\sharedprintername. This allowed me to install the printer and driver. The printer show up on my list of device. I can print to it from applications - it will move through the printer queue but nothing will happen on the printer.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

thanks,
David

Thanks for the reply. I checked all the settings as you suggested. The only one that was not correct was the one to use passwords and user accounts to connect.

When I use the add printer wizard it sees the printer but then gives me the access denied. See snapshot below. Also, I can see all the computer connected the network. When I click on the computer with the shared printer I can see the printer. If I click to connect I get the same error - please see snapshots.

Do this if the line where you say you got it works to a certain extent refers to the w7 laptop -
"I have gone through the procedure of installing a printer on a local port using the configuration \\hostcomputer\sharedprintername. This allowed me to install the printer and driver. The printer show up on my list of device. I can print to it from applications - it will move through the printer queue but nothing will happen on the printer".

The only other thing i can think of is did you install the latest vista driver for it on the laptop? Reconnect it the way you had it originally configured. Uninstall the driver you installed - Go here firstly and download the latest vista driver for it by typing in your hp model name - http://www.hp.com/#Support
If it wont install because of an OS mismatch do the following -
To install a driver OR program in compatibility mode - right click the setup.exe file - click properties - click compatibility - check run in compatibility with vista/xp etc - check run as administrator - leave the rest blank. Start setup.exe and install.

I have the latest driver from HP. XP is the latest operating system they list.

I have installed it on the machine in compatability mode. When I install the printer using a local port it installs the driver.

When I locate the printer via the network window I get access denied.

If I pull up the properties and try to chage it to sharing I get the drive wizard. (see thumbnail below). When I try to print a test page this way it knows that it did not print. The troubleshooter cannot find anything.

I think you need to install this printer on the computer that has Windows Seven and share it to the equipment that is running XP, because in Server Properties you don't have a possibilty to add Seven drivers.

Montanaro said:

When I locate the printer via the network window I get access denied.

Access denied means you don't have permission to access the computer given the current logon credentials. If you set a password for your user account in Windows 7, then create that same user account in XP, you should be able to login provided that you have Simple file sharing disabled.

Before you connect to the printer, connect by

\\ip _address_of_XP_computer

and make sure you can successfully browse the file shares. If you can't access the fileshares you probably can't access the printer either.

Montanaro said:

I am having what seems to be a very common issue - Windows 7 computer unable to access a shared printer connected to an XP Home machine.

I have tried tried several of the "fixes" suggested in this forum but no luck.

Here is the configuration. I have an HP printer connected to an XP Home machine.

The printer is shared and I can access it from another desktop (XP Home) connected to the local network via a cable and a laptop (XP Professional) connected via a wireless connection.

I have another Windows 7 laptop (Lenovo X61 tablet) where I am having trouble. First, I can see the computer and printer in the networking section. When I click on the printer to access it I get an "Windows cannot connect to the printer, Access is denied"

I have gone through the procedure of installing a printer on a local port using the configuration \\hostcomputer\sharedprintername. This allowed me to install the printer and driver. The printer show up on my list of device. I can print to it from applications - it will move through the printer queue but nothing will happen on the printer.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

thanks,
David

It won't work unless you have the printer drivers installed on the Win7 machine. This assumes that those printer drivers are made for Win7 which they probably aren't. I've been through this a million times and it won't work unless you have print drivers for the OP system that you are printing from.

Easy work around is to use the network sharing folders to slide the file you need to print over to the XP machine and just print from there.

I've been going through this since the XP days because Dell being the lazy ass's they are refuse to make Vista 64 bit drivers for their own printer. Needless to say there will never be Win7 64 bit drivers either.

Well if your still gettin access denied its obviously the xp PC.S at fault - can you try this with one of them - re run the network wizard etc and renable everthing and see if it will then connect.

I agree with chev65 and would take his advice and use the workaround, or treat yourself to a new printer.