File and Print sharing in Vista

[biggdawg]

I have a desktop running vista home basic with a dell a940 printer connected
to it
and shared. I have a laptop with vista home basic that I am trying to get to
the printer with. Networking is set up and I can connect to shared resources
on the laptop from the desktop. When I try to get to shared resources on the
desktop, I get an error that the laptop cannot connect to the pc. (network
path not found)I can ping the desktop and windows firewall and the symantec
firewall are both off. All of the network settings seem to be identical. I
even connected the laptop directly to the router and got the same result. Can
anyone shed some light on this? If it was up to me I would upgrade to XP and
be done with it. Unfortunately that is not an option. Any help would be
appreciated.

 

[Morning''''s Wait]

Hi,
please be cofirm that u've turned on printer sharing.
I sugest u 2 disable password protected sharing.
is u file sharing works ok?
if not assign static ip.
at last u have 2 turn printer spooling service in "turn on or off windows
services"
and connect the printer.

 

[Mick Murphy]

You can still buy XP until June from a lot of OEMs; just ask them!

In the laptop go to Network> Network and Sharing, and then >Add Network
Device.
Browse for the Desktop's printer, then add it, installing a Driver for it on
the laptop.

Below is a good file and printer sharing articule from MS, plus how to Network

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx

Have a read of the above link re Vista File and Printer Sharing.

Permissions/Share info is there as well.

If using Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro I.S., make sure file and printer
sharing is enabled in THEIR firewall .(LAN allowed)

1st thing to do is make sure that the Workgroup Name of ALL the computers is
the SAME.

In Vista Network and Sharing:

Network Discovery: ON (So it can see the other computers)

Network set to Private (Public is for hotspots, airports, etc)

File Sharing: ON

Public Folder Sharing: ON (Vista’s Public Folder is the same as XP’s Shared
Docs)

Password Protected: OFF (unless you want to set up identical usernames, and
passwords (they can be different) on ALL computers in your Network). If you
have it ON, you will be asked for a username and password when you try to
access a Vista computer from a Vista Computer.


Or > Start > Control Panel > Network Connections > Set up a Home or Small
Office Network.