Can't connect to Windows XP Pro Shared Printer

[Mike J]

I have an XP Pro PC on my home network and am trying to connect to a Lexmark
X215 printer that is shared off of the XP Pro machine. I am connecting with
a new Vista Home Premium Dell XPS M1530 laptop. The rest of the network is
working fine - shared files, folders, access to the Internet, etc.

The message I get when I try to connect is that Windows cannot connect to
the printer. Access is denied.

Any thoughts?

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

open a command window on the Vista machine
type

dir \\xpmachine\print$


02/01/2008 04:29 PM <DIR> color
01/16/2008 12:55 PM <DIR> w32x86
07/21/2006 05:42 PM <DIR> WIN40
10/05/2007 11:29 AM <DIR> x64


you should see a similar directory structure. If this returns access
denied, you will need to enable read permissions on the XP print$ share
which is the default configuration.

If you have not run the XP network configuration wizard be sure to run that
tool.
--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Mike J]

Alan,

I got the access denied when I executed the dir command to the XP machine.
I then ran the XP network configuration wizard and set it up for a home
network with file and printer sharing. I still get the access denied after
rebooting both machines and cannot connect to the printer. I found the
print$ folder on the XP machine but don't see anything about setting read
permissions or setting permissions at all.

I have Norton Internet Security and from what I can see, the correct ports
are open per a technet note I read on file and print sharing. I turned off
the firewall in NIS to test it but the same response came back to the dir
command.

Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

Yes something has changed the security setting on the print$ share.

Since you are running XP Pro you can reset this and allow everyone read
access. Right click My Computer / Manage

Shared Folders / Shares / Print$ right click Properties

Share Permissions

Admins and Power Users have full access

the Everyone group should be there with Read access. I am assuming the
Everyone group is missing.





--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Mike J]

I found that I had to disable simple sharing on the XP Pro machine to view
the properties of the print$ share. Once I did that, I could see the
Everyone group, etc. I am now past the Access Denied point in the install of
the printer but as the driver was installing, the Vista machine complained of
an Out of Memory condition so I rebooted and haven't gotten back to it.
Thanks for your help.

 

[GP]

I have the same problem. My computer that the printer is connected to uses
XP Home. I was able to get to the Print$, but a right click only brings up
Refresh. How do you disable simple sharing?

Thanks in advance, GP

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

Home does not contain the permissions tabs.

If you get Access Denied when reading the directory contents from a remote
machine, you can get the default ACLs back on the print$ share by stopping
the spooler service, stop sharing print$, then starting the spooler. The
spooler service will add the print$ share back with the proper security.
You should be able to do the three steps using the Computer Management
snapin on XP Home.

The big question here is what changes the security of these default shares?
I'm assuming anti virus software but not really sure since this is a
security issue.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

Mike, if you have any issue, be sure you download the Lexmark drivers
released last month 1/18/2008

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Mike J]

Alan,

I did get that driver from Lexmark. I have gotten the printer installed on
my machine and was able to print to it but the printouts sit in the queue of
the printer on the XP machine and show an Error - Print.... I cannot tell
what the error is. This happened with two Test Pages I tried to print.
Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Mike J]

Alan,

All has been resolved. It helps to have paper in the printer. That is why
the print jobs were getting stuck. I am now printing successfully from my
Vista machine through the XP machine.

Thank you so much for your help.

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

So was the Everyone group removed from print$? Any idea how the default
setting was changed? What antivirus software installed?

thanks for the update.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.