HomeGroup and wifi Home Network printer incompatability?

[acksunny]

Hi all,
New to Win 7 and have for the past couple of days been searching all over the WWW for answers and solutions to the following. I have been on countless discussion boards and tried everything that has been suggested, but I am no closer to finding solutions.

1) I am the only person in my household with a win 7 computer, so I would like to remove my laptop from the automatically generated (?) HomeGroup ( I sure did not set it up!) But no matter the suggested fix I end up with the same message: Windows could not remove this computer from the Home Group.

If there has been a suggested fix out there, i seem to have tried it. No luck.

My Brother wifi printer has worked just fine with my old laptop, my tablet and my smartphone, and which shows up in Devices and printers as the default, available, online printer, as well as in my network. I have installed and reinstalled the drivers and software 3 times now, and gone through all possible configurations and troubleshooting in addition to googling solutions... still seems unable to communicate with my laptop.

Which leads me to the following two questions:

Are HomeGroup and Home Network wifi printing in conflict with each other?
And does anyone have any proven, recent solutions for how to fix both above described issues?

Solid leads would be greatly appreciated so that I am able to get some sleep

 

[GokAy]

HomeGroup isn't automatically generated, I have ran my PC without one for 5 years and only recently changed to HomeGroup.

Have you seen this tutorial yet? http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/43980-homegroup-leave.html

 

[acksunny]

Not so fast there! My laptop (Acer Aspire win 7 home premium) is spanking new (1 week old), and unless there is a ghost, I am the only person who has had her hands on it. Like I said I did not set up HomeGroup, so it must have come pre-set up. Unless there is another logical explanation.

Thank you for link to tutorial. yes- I had tried everything listed there except the very last suggestion: turn router off and then try to leave the HomeGroup.... which I have also now tried and still no luck; see the attached.

There seem to be a few people like myself out there who have tried all the fixes that work for others, but still have the same issue.

(Im)Patiently awaiting the magic fix- to both the HomeGroup and wifi printer issues.

 

[GokAy]

It may have come pre-installed because you have OEM PC, yeah. What I tried to say is it is not a default option on a fresh install.

Anyway, see if the services for creating a HomeGroup are started - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/43961-homegroup-create.html. Maybe they are needed while leaving too?

 

[acksunny]

Thanks for clarifying and suggestions. And for the sake of keep trying to fix this, I went through the check list for settings for setting up HomeGroup. As before, the stumbling block is that the Peer Networking Grouping cannot be started. And the fix for that doesn't work (see screen shots).

In the last picture the Restart option is not active. Clicking Start did nothing.

 

[GokAy]

It is right behind the context menu on last screenshot but seems Peer Name Resolution Protocol is Automatic but not started. Right click the Peer Networking Grouping service and switch to Dependencies tab, it will list which other services are needed to be started for this one to start.

 

[acksunny]

Thank you for following up on this, GoKay!
When checking the settings you referred to, I got the following results (see screen shots):

When trying to leave HomeGroup now, I still receive the message that Windows could not do it.

Peer Network Identity Manager is already stared and on automatic. Changing it to Manual did not seem to make a difference.

 

[GokAy]

Try restoring that service to defaults - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/236709-services-restore-default-services-windows-7-a.html

Also run cmd as admin:

sfc /scannow

Then if corruption is found:

findstr /c:"[SR]" %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log >"%userprofile%\desktop\sfcdetails.txt"

and attach the sfcdetails.txt here

 

[acksunny]

Thanks. So now it's getting a bit technical for me, but I did follow the steps to restore the Peer Name Resolution Protocol (which is what I think seems to be an underlying problem) as outlined in the link below. Still the same error message when trying to "Start" the service that depends on this Protocol.

Your two other suggestions... I just don't know where I am going with those. Like I said, a bit too technical for me!

 

[GokAy]

In Start Menu search box enter cmd and right click "run as administrator" its icon when listed. Then enter (copy/paste) the first command. Wait until it is finished and if corruption is found, enter the second command. It will create a sfcdetails.txt file on desktop. Attach that one here - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

 

[acksunny]

Hi again,
Once I saw that black window I realized I had done this before when I followed another thread elsewhere... Everything seemed to be in order the first time, as it was again now. In other words I am not supposed to following with the second step, correct?

 

[GokAy]

You are correct, no need to run the other command or attach.

Did you try the HomeGroup troubleshooter?

 

[torchwood]

Can you check here, to see what your running at start-up.
Does your AV panda come with a built in Firewall that is blocking the connection to your printer.
have you also updated your printers connect too options

Roy

 

[acksunny]

Hello Torchwood,
Thank you for your input. Panda firewall is disabled. See system configuration screen shot. I am not sure what you mean by the last suggestion or how I would go about doing that?

 

[torchwood]

As your printer is wifi linked it needs to pick up your network, on its control panel you can check it is seeing it.
In my screenshot 2 you can see that print spooler is dissabled Yours needs to be enabled.

 

[torchwood]

As its only a week old you could always try a factory reset, and go straight to Network and sharing see if Homegroup is enabled.

Note as soon as you start the reset turn off WiFi.

Roy

 

[acksunny]

As far as I can see the print spooler is running; the Brother multi function device is showing on the network map (it is also shown separately as Brother printer), and when I hit print it defaults to that printer. It just never prints and I just keep getting print error messages.
When I carry the printer in to the room where the printer is located and connect via USB, it prints with no hesitation. I would just obviously like to be able to use wifi print.

Do you think there is a connection/ conflict with the HomeGroup issue and the wifi printing issue?

Although the PC is new, I hesitate to do a factory reset. Simply because many other people with the exact same problem(s) I have say it does not make a difference, and I have tried everything else that they have tried at this point.

 

[torchwood]

Its possible, but im more interested in you last screenshot,
You cut the bottom OF, it shows another printer, has that got a tick in the green circle, if so then thats the default printer you need to change the default or remove it.

Roy

 

[acksunny]

Bottom part of the screen shot showing the Brother printer. None of the devices are checked off as default.

 

[torchwood]

You need to go Control panel >> devices/printers where you can adjust/delete the Lower printer.

Roy