Thetownend.com

I'll keep the words to a minimum if possible. I have 3 xp machines connected to a router (cabled) 2 xp laptops connected wirelessly and as of tonight a windows 7 laptop. The Windows 7 laptop can see one of the Win XP machines via network map, but nothing else and it can't see anything apart from BT homehub if browsing the network.

If I try to add a networked printer (one that is set to share and connected to another computer) by browsing the network, it's obviously not possible as at sees nothing apart from itself. (The printer is already active and working on all XP machines by the way.)

I appear to be able to add it by typing it's network address \\computer\printer and it allows it to be added and seems to think it works, (shows with green tick under printers) but it doesn't.

All computers have the same Workgroup, and Win 7 doesn't have a homegroup, is set to 40/52 bit (or whatever it is, the one below 128!) security in sharing settings. The same problems are present if network in W7 is set to home or work.

Any tips to get me through this hell would be much appreciated. Thanks and please help! :)

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-between-windows-7-and-xp/

I had this exact problem the other day with my Mum's laptop not seeing my XP machine/shared printer attached to it.. Didn't have chance to resolve it so let me know if the instructions in NMH's link work.

Presume the printer is connected to an XP machine? Switch em all on including the printer and run the network wizard on the XP machines, you might then find it possible to find the printer via Windows Explorer

Thanks for the help, I'm getting back on this later today, so hopefully NMH's link helps some. Obviously it's not my network, it's my Mum's office. The things we do eh?!

@stfcinbmth Yeah, the printer is connected to an XP machine. All the XP machines are set up fine, they all share folders and printers, it's just the new Windows 7 machine that has been introduced and is blind to everything on the network apart from itself.

Doing stuff like this makes me feel like a Apple fanboy, because after about 3 hours of cleaning out all the bloat from the W7 laptop and trying to set up a network, I just wished everyone moved to Macs. :D

My next task for my mums laptop :(

It's absolute hell. I forgot how annoying it is. Some programs take fucking ages to remove and are seemingly useless. And installing stuff as well, I found it really annoying to have to untick options for things like Chrome and toolbars and what not.

And why did the laptop have about 10 programs by HP that all seem to do absolutely nothing apart from irritate you? And almost everything wants you to register, including the laptop! ARGH!

There's a nice little app that's called PC Decrapifier.  This scans your new PC identifies all the crap you don't need and will uninstall it all with one click rather than having to do everything individually.  If it picks up something you want to keep just untick it and it leaves it.

Cheers slinky, it's too late now, but will certainly be something to bear in mind for the future.

I've just done this, on the XP machine go to start>control panel>printers and faxes open it up then right click on the active printer, then right click, scroll down to sharing open,  then check the box saying share this printer (it should put a hand underneath) then click okay.  Then on the win 7 machine find the  share printer folder( should be on the desktop)  and on mine it asked if I wanted to run the driver software (my machine found this on it's own) click yes then it should work.

Sorry, but not a chance

Will have a peek at that, cheers slinky

The issue for me was the shared printer didn't show up. The printer share works fine for other XP machines so its something on the Win 7 machine.

Word, sharing's fine between XP computers, it just doesn't like having a slightly more backwards OS getting involved. :D

It's making my blood boil, 5 hours or so with this today. I can't believe there's much left to try, although on a message board somewhere someone made a suggestion I couldn't complete today, as I needed a USB for the printer. I'm hoping it works when I try it tomorrow. If it doesn't I will suggest a professional is bought in and not some wannabe nerd/geek. :D

They didn't, but this is how I resolved it.

http://www.pchell.com/support/printeraccessdenied.shtml

This didn't work, but got me on the way. I think there's a checkmark against a menu item when you right click the printer under printers and devices or somewhere, I forget exact location, I found it by chance - after I'd tried the next step - so the next step might not be necessary. :)

Plugin in the printer, by USB, let it fully install, then unplug it and change the printers port to the port you created from the above instructions. It then worked. (After the checkmark being removed for printer offline!)

Thanks Barry. Will give it a look next time she's here. To be honest the need to share the printer has passed now, but I hate it when things don't work for no good reason!

I can deal with things not working for no good reason, it's when they don't work because it's Windows Vista/7 that annoys me! :D

I remembered where the checkmark thing I was on about is. It's actually for jobs queued for the printer. Prior to plugging it in by USB the printer appeared to have no problems and be fully functioning, however, nothing ever printed and the queue was always empty. (I say that, but when I turned up yesterday, the printer had 5 printed test pages sat waiting - WTF?!)

I think it's in the comments of my previous link, but someone mentions plugging it in by USB to properly install the drivers. It was this that resolved the problems, once the port had been switched, as jobs were then queued and I right clicked to take the printer online.