Remotely install printers

It's strange that it works from Xp to XP, but not from WIndows 7 to XP. I'll have a look.

You should make sure the computers are in the same WORKGROUP, if you did not set this to a custom name then by default the XP and 7 computers are NOT in the same workgroup and this method will not work. You can right click on Computer in the start menu and choose properties from the drop down list to check this.

Then you should go back and read some of the posts on this thread and verify this information so that if it is something else people don't keep going over the same things. There is NO magic button to make everything perfect but boy wouldn't that be great :)

Ok, I managed to let it work partially. I'll explain. I'm having domain admin rights. But apparantly that wasn't enough to be able to install a printer remotely. So I gave myself local admin rights on my pc. After loggin out and logging back in, I was able to do the installation to an xp machine. But the thing that doesn't work is install a printer on another Windows 7 machine via my W7 machine. But I'm able to install a printer on a W7 machine, via an xp machine. Very strange.

Unless your network is misconfigured, as a domain admin, you alrady have local admin rights. You are also getting us very confused when you keep talking about installing a printer remotely.

I'll say it again for clarity's sake....if you can't install a shared printer to your local machine by using \\computername\printername, then you have network or permission errors. That's the basis of Windows networking, and has nothing to do with what OS is runnong on the systems. You are also making this much more complicated by trying to share the printer off of a client OS. If you are a domain admin, then you should be doing the print sharing properly...hang it off a computer with a server OS, and share it out with all the various drivers loaded for each of the client OSes that will be connecting to it.

The printer is connected directly to the network. It's not shared on a computer.

Like I already said, the printers are connected directly to the network. Every printer has an IP address, for instance 192.168.5.5
If we need to install this printer on another pc (let's say 192.168.5.101) (because we don't have a print server, I know that would be a lot easier, and hopefully that'll come one day), on xp, i went on my machine to start- run -\\192.168.5.101 and from there we could install the printer, like we were actually on that pc. It wroks from XP to XP, from W7 to XP and from XP to W7, but apparantly there's still a problem between 2 W7 machines.
I also thought that when you had domain admin rights it should work, but I needed to add myself on my machine (W7) on the local admin group to have necessary rights to install a printer on an xp machine. But when I want to do the same on a W7 machine, I'm getting,once again, an error message concerning not having enough rights, even when I'm having domain admin rights and local admin rights on that pc (I tested by adding myself on the local admin group). I still find this strange. I can install printers on other W7 machines by using XP mode on my pc, but it would be easier if I could do this via W7 itself.

Unless someone has another idea, I think we can close this one.

I still think are you very confused in what you want to do. If the printers have their own IP addresses....why are you talking about XP to XP or W7 to W7? If the printers are standalone network printers....they shouldn't be hanging off any computers, and the UNC paths, aka \\nameorip shouldn't be used. Since they have IP addresses, you aren't targeting any computer or print server, so there's no care or need to discuss XP to XP, W7 to W7, XP to W7...there's none of that happening. It's client to printer.

That all being said, the proper way to install a printer like that is to create a local printer, using a standard tcp/ip port (all done through the new printer wizard) and give the IP of the printer as the port. It will communicate with the printer, let you install the drivers, and be done with it.

I'm not trying to sound like an ass, but a lot of the confusion in this thread could have been skipped by better explanations and usage of proper terms. Had you said in the beginning you had IPs for the printers, and skipped over all the UNC paths and the discussions about client OS connecting to other client OSes....this thread would have been much simpler.

As a suggestion, even though the printers have IP addresses, they can still be shared from a server, designated as a print server. If you are in charge of installing these printers for other users on their computers.....take the steps now to make your life easier down the road, and use a printer server. Then you can simply e-mail a link out to people to click on to install their printers.

Thanks WindowsStar for helping out here. Unfortunately I cannot get it to work. but I think I knwo where the problem lies. We're not using Windows servers but Linux servers and Samba. And I guess there is a problem with the group domain admins between Windows 7 and Samba. I'll have to digg in with my network administrator. When I find it, I'll let ik know. I'll close this question.

Thanks again everyone for trying to help.

Jvuz