Windows 7 - Lexmark C500 colour laser printer

This is my first post on this forum and hope someone can help me.

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 1764 last Thursday and it is running Win 7 home Premium 64bit.

A Lexmark C500 colour laser printer is hooked up to my old Dell Inspiron 6400 running XP 2005 media edition SP3.

I tried installing the printer on my new laptop through the "Add Printer" option but the printer driver for the C500 was not listed. I tried installing a driver from the CD I got with the printer but it returned a message advising was wrong OS. I then called Lexmark and was advised the C500 is not supported any longer.

Is there a driver for my printer I can install (read there is a driver for Vista 64bit) so that I don't have to go and purchase a new printer.

Im sorry to tell you pcastric, but lexmark's website shows only a 32bit Vista driver. You may want to try it just in case... as many vista drivers work under Windows 7. The issue here may be the 64 vs 32 bit.
Lexmark - United States

Thanks Darryl for your quick response.

I will attempt to install it and see what happens - bottom line is that I really dont want to go out a purchase a new printer just because of a printer driver (wife was not too pleased when I purchased new laptop).

I will do another search as I did see a Vista 64 bit driver somewhere.

In any case, I will let you know what happens.

Pierre

So the printer is hooked up to your Desktop/XP machine...

Are these machines networked on a router?

Of so...
On the XP machine go to your printer's property page and select Sharing ... set the printer up to share on your network.

Wait about 10 minutes for network enumeration to catch up.

Go into your laptop and select "Add a printer"... select Network printers and add the printer. A small protocal driver will install on your laptop and now you can use the printer while it's connected to the desktop machine.

Nice to hear from someone from Ontario (I live in Orleans which is a suburb in the east part of Ottawa).

Yes I do have a network and router and will try your suggestion when I get home tonight.

Many thanks.

Pierre

You may have to wrestle with it just a little... Printer sharing is driven, in part by the printer's drivers themselves so getting the two machines talking to one another can be a bit of a headache at first... Just remember to read the screens as they appear and explore the options you have available.

I'm sure you'll do fine.

Tater:

He (OP) still needs a Windows 7 driver (or compatible)... in a network setup the client PC (Windows 7 in this case) will obtain the printer drivers from the print server (WinXP in this case). That XP driver wont do the trick for him as he originally stated in post #1.

Perhaps I misread but I got that he was trying to hook the pringer up directly to the Windows 7 laptop which would require the Windows 7 driver... but There is no Windows 7 driver...nWhich is why I suggested sharing...

He should be able to do this with the protocal driver for x86... He should not have to install the printer driver itself in his Windows 7 machine if he's sharing the printer.

But I've been wrong before... If you have better knowledge of this, by all means feel free to help the OP...

Thanks everyone for your comments. In order to find a solution, let me detail what I am trying to do.

Here is what I have:
Lexmark C500 colour laser printer (no wifi)
Dell 6400 laptop running XP 2005 Media Edition SP3
Brand new Dell 1764 laptop running Win 7 Home Premium
D Link router
AOL Modem

What I'm trying to do:
Ran the Add Printer option on my new Dell 1764 in order to install printer driver
Inserted driver CD got with printer
Message was returned saying that driver was not compatible with OS
Called Lexmark support and was advised they do not support the C500 printer and therefore do not have a Win 7 compatible driver

Problem
I cannot plug my printer to my new laptop as I cannot install a printer driver
I can access my old laptop through my network but cannot send something to print because there is no printer driver for my new laptop

Aside from purchasing a new Win 7 compatible printer, what can I do?

Ok have you gone into the old XP machine and set the printer up for sharing?
It's pretty easy, just right click on the printer, select properties and then "share".

Now comes the fun... you need to downgrade the Windows 7 machine to talk to the XP system...

The general instructions for that are here ...
http://www.sevenforums.com/network-s...tml#post684650

Follow the steps exactly... Of prime importance make sure they are both on the same workgroup...

This will give you both file and printer sharing.

Now from the Windows 7 open any folder and click on network... you should see the printer on the other machine... Finally in control panel go to "Devices and Printers"... at the top click "Add a Printer"... There will be a short flurry of activity as the protocal driver for shared printers is installed ... You DO NOT need to install the printer's drivers on your Windows 7 machine (which is why I suggested sharing)... from there you should be able to print on the Windows 7 machine and have it come out on the XP machine.

If this doesn't work well...