Oh blast, here we go again - sharing Win7 printer w/XP computers

Oh how frustrating.

Networking issue - Win7 printer, XP remote machines describes some agonies I had in December, getting XP computers to print, over my home wireless network, on a printer USB connected to a Windows 7 computer. The information at How to Enable Printer & File Sharing between Windows 7 and Windows XP | Windows 7 finally solved my problem and I've been printing happily ever since.

Until last night when I replaced my 10-year-old HP 920C with a Canon iP4800 Series XPS printer.

My home computers are two Win7 64 bit ones, plus three XP 32 bit ones.

Let me run through the computers and my experiences getting them to print to the new printer.

My computer (64-bit Windows 7): Printed first time after following installation instructions.

64-bit Windows 7 laptop: Once I added the new printer by typing its remote name (\\win7box\canon ip4800 series xps) it found the computer, found the driver, and printed fine.

32-bit XP Dell netbook: This computer has no CD drive, so I copied the contents of the installer CD to a flash drive. Adding the new printer was as simple as typing in the remote share name, then searching for the driver on the flash drive (okay, finding the driver on the flash drive was tricky). Took no more than five minutes.

32-bit XP Lenovo laptop: I never got farther than being asked to enter a password to access the remote printer. And the password I entered, it wouldn't accept.

32-bit XP desktop: This worked a lot like the Dell netbook. I entered the remote share name, it couldn't find the driver, asked me to search for it - but the same files that were acceptable to the Dell netbook, were not acceptable here. I wound up trying to find an XP-32 driver for the printer, downloading it to this machine, and even then, even after a restart, could not get the printer recognized.

So what am I missing?

A perhaps-obvious thing would be to run the installer disk for the printer on the last two machines, so that it can put drivers on them. But why did the Dell netbook accept the drivers I'd put on the flash drive, but the XP desktop not?

And why, when the Lenovo laptop had been able to print from the old HP printer connected to the Win7 box, was it asking for a password for the new box?

I'd think that the XP machines would all "react" the same and give the same issues, and they haven't.

I'm at work now, not by the machines. But I'm hoping that I get some responses during the day that I can try at night. Given that I wrestled with this problem five months ago, solved it, and documented how, I'd think I'd not have it again - especially with a newer printer that should support this stuff better than the old one did.

Okay, replying to my own post.

Using the installation disk to install the drivers to each computer did the trick.

In the case of the Lenovo laptop, that was weird. The thing was not a part of my home network, somehow. Then I somehow made it a part of the home network, and it connected correctly the first time.

Probably three hours of work to do what should have taken 15 minutes, but it's done. I am now ready to wait another decade to buy a printer.