Windows 7 to Vista network printing - yet again

[Small Faker5]

I first posted this, wrongly I think, at the end of an old thread and have had no response yet. I know this issue has been done to death many times but hope someone can help me in this case, which I think has a difference.
I have a wireless home network with a Vista 32 bit at the centre with a Canon S900 printer attached, and until recently it worked fine with laptops running Windows XP, but I have just got a Windows 7 (64 bit) laptop and, although I have got all other network communications going (by the end of day 1), at the end of day 7 I can still not get the Windows 7 laptop to print via the Vista PC.
I think I can assume I have all the firewall/router connections sorted, because file sharing works fine in all directions, and if I connect the printer directly to the Windows 7 laptop by USB I can print back to it from the Vista machine. With the printer connected to the desktop, however:
1. If I try to Install the network printer it says “No driver found”, and wherever I try to direct it to find the driver (including on its own C drive, where it has the driver that works in Local mode) it only says “Windows cannot connect to the printer – Operation failed with error 0x00000214”.
2. If I try to connect as suggested by creating a new local port, and addressing the printer by \\VISTAMACHINE\SHAREDPRINTER, it just says “Access is denied”, although there are no corresponding log messages in any of my firewalls.

I think the problem must be with the driver, because the Canon 64 bit driver is only available as an add-on, rather than as a separate driver. I can download it as an executable Zip file and run it on my Vista machine, and it appears to install, but when I look in the Printer Properties, it does not have the box ticked for x64 in the Additional Drivers section. If I try to install it there manually it doesn’t succeed because it looks for a .INF file, and wherever I point it, it says “The specified location does not contain the driver Canon S900 for the requested processor architecture”.
Does anyone have any suggestions, please?!!!!

 

[PooMan UK]

Hiya and welcome to the forums

In a nutshell and this is a personal opinion .... I would invest in a small print server. You can pick them up really cheaply nowadays and they take away allot of the headaches of setting up print sharing and driver related problems, plus you don't have to have the pc on that the printer is connected to currently.

 

[Small Faker5]

I must admit I would rather not have to get an extra piece of equipment and quite like solving problems like this - or getting someone else to solve them for me! I guess it would solve the problem if I upgraded my desktop PC to Windows 7, but again I would rather not give the money to Mr Gates if I can avoid it!
Is there no-one out there who can give some advice on this driver issue?

 

[DocBrown]

I have a 12 computer network at work, mixed with win7 & XP. I have 8 printers on the network attached to various computers. What I have had to do in several cases to get the printer seen on the network is to connect it as a local printer on the computers not seeing it. This establishes the drivers on those computers. Make sure printer sharing is turned ON with all the computers. I then move it back to the network computer I really want it connected to. Then I go back to the troublesome computers and do a search for adding a network printer. It has usually worked 9 times out of 10. Sometimes requires a reboot of all computers & printers on the network to find the desired printer.

Hope this might help by giving you a idea to try

 

[Small Faker5]

The solution! (also file sharing on mixed networks)

Thanks to those who tried to help, but in the end the answer was more basic. I had set up matching user accounts on the Laptop & server, but I had not entered a password, I read on a 'File-sharing' forum that you must also have the user accounts with passwords because Windows doesn't think unprotected accounts are safe enough! This is worth emphasising because I am still seeing requests for help with file sharing on mixed (32 bit & 64 bit) networked machines.
My machines and printer are communicating fine now.