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#1
Trouble connecting to network printer
I have a new laptop with windows 7 home premium (64 bit) and I am trying to connect with a shared printer on my home network. The printer is connected through USB to a 32 bit desktop with XP SP3. All windows updates are up to date on both machines.
I have both computers on the same workgroup and can see and access shared files and directories on both computers. I can see the XP printer from the windows 7 laptop. No matter how I have tried to connect with it, I get a connection error.
I have dowloaded and installed the latest drivers for the printer (Lexmark X1150). There has been an updated XP driver which I just installed on the desktop. The printer does not have a windows 7 driver, but it says to use the vista driver, so that is the driver I installed on the windows 7 laptop. I can access the printer and get it to work if I plug it directly into the windows 7 machine (so I assume that means the driver works).
I am just using windows firewall on both computers with AVAST security software. Tried to connect with both firewalls completely turned off, with no luck.
I've tried to connect to the printer on the XP machine in these ways:
1) by "add a new printer", "network printer", specifying \\xpdesktop\lexmark. A window pops up that says “connecting to Lexmark X1100 Series on xpcomputer”. Then in a few seconds that window says “finishing installation” and an error window pops up that says “windows cannot connect to the printer. Operation failed with error 0x0000000d”
2) by double clicking on the printer I can see in the network places. Same result as above…
3) by "add a new printer", "local printer", and specifying the \\xpdesktop\lexmark port. It tries to download a driver from windows update but my printer is not on the list, and my disk has nothing for windows 7. (why can't I browse to a driver... and it should be already installed anyway???)
4) by plugging in the printer directly to the laptop. Then plugging it into the desktop and changing the port on the laptop to \\xpdesktop\lexmark. I can do that without error, but when I go to print I get a message that windows “cannot communicate with the printer”.
I’ve spent over 8 hours trying to get this to work. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks!