New Win7 computers won't connect to shared printers

My office network had 3 workstations and two laptops, all running XP. Also, an HP large format plotter on Jet direct, a Xerox high speed page printer on the Ethernet port, another HP small format plotter connected directly to one of the workstations and a small HP inkjet page printer connected to another of the workstations. All was well in the kingdom for 10 years with all the printers/plotters shared and all the data files (folders) shared with everyone, even with replacement devices over the years. Then, a laptop recently died and the new one has WIN7 pro. It will share folders but won’t print to anything. Then we added a new workstation last week and it too has WIN7 pro. It will share files but won’t print to anything. Both the Win7 machines “see” the network printers and both reported successful connections and drivers and show in the device manager. They both show all the printers/plotters as “ready” or “offline” correctly in the spooler or control panel. If you send a print job to them, it appears to go but never prints/plots. The “test print” function does the same, no print. The onboard printer diagnostics say “no errors detected”. There are no print jobs hanging in the spooler. If I connect the printers directly (USB) to the win7 machines they print OK. I have no way to directly connect and test the Ethernet printers/plotters
Any clues? If this is progress, I want my XP back!!!!

Those drivers will also need to be Windows 7 compatible, not to mention USB printers are so 10 years ago. We print to network printers these days, much more reliable.

matts6887 said:

Well, even if windows 7 sees the printers; you still have to install drivers for printers; even if they are on a network. I would check with each of the printers manufacturer's sites to see what drivers they have. I know this because i had to do this for my dad's desktop at his current office. They have a high speed printer on their network; for which i had to install the driver for it.

Yes, drivers are installed. They won't show in the device list without drivers. And, new ones for win7 were installed from HP and xerox. I may just put ethernet to USB or parallel print servers all around. Talking to HP they just tell you "buy new printers". Why trash a $5,000 plotter!

Slartybart said:

You say that the printers are seen in Windows, but it isn't clear that they are 'installed' correctly.

You say that you can connect the printer(s) directly to the box.

This tells me that you have a local printer AND possibly a network printer. It would be helpful to see a screen shot of Devices and Printers.

There are also some issues when XP is acting as the server. You might consider making the Win7 box the seerver for the one printer and share it from there.

From Win7 Help

If Windows can't detect a printer that you want to use, follow these steps to find and add the printer manually:

1. Click to open Devices and Printers.
   Click Add a Printer.
   In the Add Printer wizard, select Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer.
   On the Searching for available printers page, click The printer that I want isn't listed.
   On the Find a printer by name or TCP/IP address page, choose how to find the printer that you want to use, based on the type or location of the printer, and then click Next.
2. Complete the additional steps in the wizard, and then click Finish.

I'll back out until I see teh screen shot.

Screen shot attached for one of the win7 machines. The other is the same. Today I tried to get the xerox attached and no luck. The driver will not install in win7 and xerox does not have a new one. Same story "get new printer". I suppose the root cause of all this is the drivers are just not up to the job in the newer OS. I'm afraid the software and the hardware manufacturers like it this way to sell more items. Right now I still have three printers/plotters running from the old XP work station. Two on Ethernet and one direct. Looks like everyone will have to go to that machine to run their print jobs. My office win 7 machine has the small modern HP attached and running but no one else can connect, including the other win 7 machine

Slartybart said:

Thanks, I have an older Minolta printer and had to find a 'generic' driver since they stopped offering drivers.

If you could supply the Xerox model I can see what I can find - the trick is to find a reputable site and avoid the junk offered by so-called driver sites.

I had suggested using the new Win7 workstation as the 'print hub' instead of an XP box - it makes it 'easier' and moves you forward.

This will take some effort, but you seem capable enough and up to the task - it's just that Win7 is alien at first.

See if Share Files and Printers between Windows 7 and XP helps. It begins with a Win7 box and then connects an XP box to the printer. This method should connect all but the Xerox -> you might be able to run the Xerox driver in XP mode if no 'current' drive can be found - not sure about that though.

Boy, are you right on the money!!! I found a generic "xerox 215 driver" online and it infected my entire network with junk. Took over Internet explorer and chrome in all the computers and fed us with adds!! Took me an hour to get it out of everything. Its a xerox workcenter pro 215. If I can get that printer on the new machines, I can live with the rest of the problems. I still don't understand why the two win7 machines wont share a printer physically connected (USB) to one of them. It works well with the machine it's attached to and will work if I connect it physically to the other but neither will "share" it with each other. Don't want to be old but glad my office days are mostly in the past. I own the company and took care of this stuff ever since PC's came into being but now it's just getting too much!!!