There is a printer hooked up to one computer on our network. All of the computers are on the same workgroup, called WORKGROUP.
There are 4 computers, 3 of them are 7 and 1 is Vista. All the 7 computers are 64-bit, but the Vista PC is 32.
The printer shows up on the PC it is plugged in to, but it doesn't show up on the others. How can I get it to show up on all the PCs?
Open the Network and Sharing Center window (you can type it into the search bar of the start menu). On the left side of the window, choose Advanced Sharing Settings. You will need to make sure NETWORK DISCOVERY and FILE AND PRINTER SHARING is turned on.
Once you've adjusted your settings accordingly, check to see if your printer is discoverable from the other computers.
On the print server machine, you may need to allow everyone to share the print$ share folder (%systemroot%\system32\spool\drivers) so that necessary drivers may be installed across the network.
On the client machine, the network printer share on the print server machine need to be connected, which will then install the printer driver on the client PC and install the network printer in the Devices and Printers section of the Control Panel.
For example, WinSrvr2008R2 as your print server and Win7 64 WS's, all in a WORKGROUP setting, no domain. In this type of environ., in order for WS users to be able to connect to the Srvr2008 shared printers, the users on the WS's have to also be on the print server. Pswrds have to be the SAME too. This, in addition to the previous posts - turn on net disc, file and print sharing, etc.
Correct me if there's a better alternative. I haven't set up a proper domain yet, and at this time, this is the only way I have found to get it to work. Remember that network printers do not propagate to all users on a WS. You have to set them up for each user account.
So for example I have 5 user accounts on a Win7 64 WS: 3 standard users, 1 local WS admin, and 1 admin that is admin on both the WS and the server. 4 of those users are set up on the Win Server. The standard users on the WS are also standard users on the Server. The user account that is not on the server cannot connect to any of the shared printers.
I am running a test environment for Equitrac. In order to replicate an environment where different users log in, print, and then are tracked in Equitrac as different departments and fees and such, this is the way I got it to work.
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