Network Sharing with XP, Vista and 7?

[computersplus]

Home versions of Windows can be tuff to network as apposed to the Pro versions

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Yes, they are all full Administrators.

I have just finished hacking the registry on the Vista machine. I'll see what it says now...

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Well, it is still insisting that it doesn't have a driver for the printer, despite the fact that I JUST installed the appropriate Vista 32 driver on it. Don't know what to do about that, because that's the ONLY driver and version dell has for it. So... yeah. Guess that one just won't work then.

I'll try doing this same reg. hack on the 7 and see what happens.

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Despite the registry hack, and despite installing the respective appropriate drivers, neither portable PC is able to connect to, or print from the Dell_922.

 

[computersplus]

what router are you using

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Actiontec M1424WR for Verizon FiOS.

 

[computersplus]

you may try turning off the internal firewall and try it again

 

[EvilOzzmess]

On the router, or the computers? I have already tried turning all three PC firewalls off and it still didn't work.

 

[computersplus]

on the router itself here is some info that may help

Vista and XP home edition - print share - Vista Forums

 

[EvilOzzmess]

I still haven't resolved these issues, apart from the Spooler App error...

 

[EvilOzzmess]

I could really use your help with this guys, please and thanks!

 

[aem]

Can the machines ping one another? and you are just wanting to connect to the shares from one machine to the other?

 

[EvilOzzmess]

I think they can, but I don't know for sure. How can I check that?

I'd like to share from XP Desktop to the other two, just the printer and the files. I don't want the Notebook and Laptop to share with each other though, it's unnecessary.

 

[aem]

Go to a command promt on one machine and type
ping ipaddress, ipaddress is the ip of the machine you want to connect to. To get that ip address, go to that computer and in command prompt type: ipconfig

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Sorry for the untimely delay. I'm positive that they can ping each other as they are able to share files and essentially talk to one another. Therefore that is most likely not the problem.

It's either Dell's driver for the printer (I'm leaning more towards this one), or Windows 7 itself. Or maybe I just didn't do something right with the ports. But, I've tried both known ways ten times to get it working and it still just won't work no matter what I do. I might just have to call Dell, or just deal with having to fire up the dinosaur XP to print.

But anyway, the reason I highly suspect the printer driver itself is because the printer would not work when directly connected to my mom's Vista x32 laptop (as I previously stated), which is the specific windows version it was written for. Why it won't work for my computer through the network, I couldn't say. I'll have to try the XP drivers instead and see if that helps... I just hope it doesn't hose my freshly established install of 7.

 

[mkensinger]

Something to look at...no idea if it will help...

EvilOzzmess,

I have just finished a five day battle with connecting 4 Vista & 1 Win 7 system together to share three printers all being hosted on an XP machine. I must have tired 100's of things before I got to this....from a post of mine at Vista Forums...

"In an act of desperation, I took a look at my connection properties and noticed that Internet Protocol 6 (TCP/IPv6) was selected...Don't remember who,what,when where or why, but I did remember that XP doesn't know anything about it."

Once I turned off the IPv6 on the Vista systems, everything started working...I don't know why, but it did...

I am using the ActionTec wireless router (Verizon FIOS). The Win 7 (x64) and two of the Vista (x86) are laptops connecting wireless, two Vista (1 x86, 1 x64) are wired and the good ole XP box is wired.

This may not have ANYTHING to do with your problem, but it was 99% of mine.

I only hope that this may be of help to you...

My Best Always,

Michael

 

[EvilOzzmess]

I shall look into that... so long as it doesn't bomb my internet connection or my HomeGroup, we'll be cool. Thanks.

 

[mkensinger]

LOL,

Nope...not for me anyway...it was a pretty strange battle. Nothing made any sense to me. It did make everything paly together once I shut that off...no problems getting to the internet either.

Now, if I could only get that stupid FIOS WiFi thing to play nice with Windows 7 (x64) I'd be set!!!

My Best Always,

Michael

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Alright, so I assume if the router is physically connected to the XP machine, that I would have to disable the TCP/IPv6 through it, rather than through the Laptop and Notebook, right? I'm looking at the properties of my network on the 7 Notebook but the checkbox for TCP/IPv6 isn't there... Am I in the right place to be looking, or is this located elsewhere than Network Properties? Thanks again.

 

[Barman58]

I think that IPv6 would be a bit of a red herring in this case. It's not installed by default in XP and removing the protocol from win7 systems would disable Homegroup. the issue here would appear to be with the printer driver, and until you can print from the vista machines from a direct connection using the driver, even a perfectly set-up network will not print