Windows 7: Weird printer sharing issue - XP and Win7

Hi,



I have 5 computers networked. 3 are Win 7 and 2 are XP Pro SP3.
The printer is connected to an XP machine and can be seen by all computers.
They are all in the same workgroup.
The 2 XP computers can share the printer normally and as long as the machine with the printer is on I can print without problems.
The 3 Windows 7 machines cannot.
I have tried all tricks I found here. I added the printer to Windows 7 as a local printer and added a local port that points to the XP machine (//XPComputer/Printer). That didn't work either and it seems to be the way people get it to work between XP and Windows 7.
I tried adding a network printer and although it sees the printer in the printer list, it hangs adding the printer or after adding the printer I get error 0x0000000d or 0x00000716. I looked these up but couldn't find anything that helped me solve the problem.
There seems to be some sort of authentication issue between the XP machine and the Windows 7 ones.
One tidbit of information, the XP machines are both using NetBEUI. Not sure if that is causing the issue or not. Haven't tried to disable it.
Has anybody fixed anything similar??
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

FayeC

Maybe this tutorial will show you the steps needed for it to work correctly.
Share Files and Printers between Windows 7 and XP :: the How-To Geek

Thank you for the post but I had already gone through that and many other tutorials on how to set up file and printer sharing between XP and Windows 7 and nothing has worked so far. I also tried:
Networking from Printer attached to Win XP PC to Win 7 and it didn't work either.

The printer is connected to the XP machine. I have also tried to connect it to the Windows 7 machine but it won't install it because when I run the driver package I got from Lexmark I keep getting a "The installer found an older version of the driver, please uninstall and try running this setup again". I never had a printer installed on the Win 7 machine, I checked the System32 folder for any possible lexmark driver left there and nothing shows.

As for the XP machine, it allows connections to the other XP machine without password but when the Win 7 tried to access it it keeps asking for a password. I set the security settings for the printer to allow full control to anyone just to see if that was the problem and it still won't allow the printer to be used.

Just for the record I am logging in to the machines using my administrator account.

The Win 7 computers can see the printer as a shared item in the network but not use it. Another tidbit of information is that although the Win 7 can see and browse the other 2 XP computers when I try to browse the XP computer to which the printer is connected it asks me for a username and password while the other XP can be browsed without that.
I never had any special or different setting for it so I am not sure what is causing the extra step to access the files.

The only thing preventing me from installing WIndows 7 on the XP box at this point is the fact that I am not sure of that system's parts compatibility to Windows 7. Otherwise I would have gone ahead and switched it. I might do that on the laptop running win XP but I need to figure out the printer issue first. Right now I only have 2 computers that can print to the printer. I need to have all 5 printing to it.

Any help is very appreciated,

FayeC

Hi FayeC -

Did you have any luck with your printer issue? I'm having a somewhat similar issue - though my printer is attached via cable to my Vista machine. I can't print via wifi to it from the Windows 7 system, though I have been able to print the test page from the Windows 7 system... it just won't print anything else from any other program.

When I run the troubleshooter in Windows 7, it tells me the Windows 7 computer cannot connect to the printer (this is after it successfully prints the test page). Also, the HP box that pops up for the printer on Windows 7 tells me the printer is "offline" - but it is clearly not, since it just printed the test page.

When I install my printer (connected to another network computer) on the Windows 7, it automatically installs drivers... and I'm wondering if it's installing drivers off my Vista system -- therefore it's installing Vista drivers (which I suspect won't work on Windows 7 b/c I found Windows 7 drivers on the HP site). So... my last ditch effort right now (it's downloading) is to try putting Windows 7 drivers onto the Windows 7 computer before I attempt to install the printer (yet again) to the Windows 7 system.

Anyway, I was wondering if you did manage to find a solution, what was it?

Thanks.

Do you have the same Firewall and anti-virus programs on all machines?

My XP and Windows 7 computers are different than each other. I found that ZoneAlarm (on XP) was blocking Windows 7 from sharing. I manually added my Windows 7's address to ZoneAlarm so as not to block it.

Jacee -

I did manage to get the Windows 7 to print from a notepad document... but it still won't print from Word/Office or Internet Explorer.

I changed the printer settings on the HP Deskjet/Vista to "render print jobs on client computers" and that's when notepad started printing. Nothing else will, tho.

If notepad prints, and the test documents print... would the firewall permit those but not the others?

I have McAfee on Vista, the Windows 7 has Norton (for now). In McAfee, there's nothing I can change, that I can find on either the Advanced or Basic menus to allow another computer on the network in (or block it) to my system.

You may have to add the actual name of the computer like ... //wenlom-PC or whatever your name is ... //Windows 7-PC

Do you see what I mean, or did I confuse you pretty good?

Jaycee -

Nope, didn't confuse me.

I've actually tried to create a "faux" local port, and use the path as //MyVistaComputer/MyPrintername... I've tried //MSHOME/MyVistaComputer/Printers/MyPrintername (every path imaginable...) When I do that I get messages saying "not a valid path" and "access denied" and "path does not exist"

It's just frustrating b/c it's printing test pages and prints from notepad, but won't print from other programs. When I do try to print from, say, Word, I can hear the printer in the other room make noises, as if it's going to print... the paper feeder or something clunks around a bit, but then it doesn't actually print.

The print jobs show up in the print queue on the Windows 7 computer, but they're not showing up in the print queue on my Vista computer - when there's one sent from Windows 7, that is.

It's making contact, but apparently it's not making full contact.

It may be, that during whatever process you used to get this far along, may have resulted in corrupt drivers or perhaps whatever drivers Windows 7 got from the Vista machine, provide some limited functionality, but programs like word or excel requre a more robust driver. Try going here, HP Deskjet Full Feature Software and Drivers HP Deskjet F4280 All-in-One Printer - HP Customer Care (United States - English) and select whatever version of Windows 7 you've installed 32 or 64 bit, download the latest full feature driver pack dated 10/2009 then go to the properties of your printer on the advanced tab and select new driver. It comes in the form of an executeable and while that may work, it's kinda unlikely, you may have to use a utility like 7zip to extract the executeable into a local folder on your computer and point the update driver process to that folder. Hope this helps

This may help you (it solved my problem) from Jimbo:

Hi Mods
Maybe you can make this a sticky -- often comes up and I posted a solution yesterday which works.
..............extract from previous post .....
Hi there
I've posted on this before but to share Printers attached to XP computers with either X-64 or X-32 versions of Windows 7 is SIMPLE. These instructions are for the Printer attached to the XP machine (but works in reverse as well).

("Stand alone" Network printers can be done slightly similarly BTW).

assume the computers are call XPMACHINE and W7MACHINE.

1) Ensure Printer on XP machine is shared - assume it's called SHAREDPRINTER.

2) On the Network Browsing on your Windows 7 machine ensure you can "See" the Printer share.

Now on the Windows 7 machine do the following (doesn't matter if it's X-86 or x-64).

3) Control Panel==> add LOCAL (Yes LOCAL) printer. I know it's on a Network but hold your horses -- what we are actually doing is "Poodlefaking" the Windows 7 machine into thinking it's running the printer.

4) Create NEW port==>Local port

5) Portname is \\XPMACHINE\SHAREDPRINTER

6) Now Windows 7 will load a driver and you'll be able to print on the XP machine.

Simple

(For a "Network stand alone printer") at 4) chose TCPIP port
and at 5) enter the IP address.


If the printer is on the Windows 7 machine and you want to print on the XP machine then do the same instructions on the XP machine --
port name in this case will be \\W7MACHINE\SHAREDPRINTER

Cheers
jimbo