Network Printing Delay from Vista to XP Printers

[Neil]

Hi,

I am printing on a small two-computer network -- from a Vista Home Premium
Toshiba laptop to a Compaq laptop running XP. I have two HP printers
connected to the Compaq. When I connect a printer directly to the Vista
laptop, all printing functions respond normally.

However, I when try to print through the network - from the Vista laptop via
wireless or lan cable - the following occurs:

When I send a Word document to print it can take as long 15 or seconds or
more for the print dialog box to appear. When you press OK to print - it is
delayed another few seconds. If I make a minor change in the Word document
and then try to print again, the printing dialog box takes about half the
time to appear - around 6-7 seconds.

I get the same response when I go to look at the page setup settings in
Word. It takes 10 - 15 seconds for the page setup dialog box to appear.
Interestingly, once it appears - I can close it and when I try to open it
again, it will open immediately.

Can someone please make suggestions or recommend settings changes I can make
so that I can print normally from the Vista machine on the network?

 

[BobS]

Neil,

Check the print spooling settings. Start > Printers & Faxes > Right Click
on Printer > Properties > Advanced Tab

Check - Always available
Priority - 1
Driver - make sure it's using the correct driver
Check Spool print documents so program finishes printing faster
Check Start printing immediately
Check Print spooled documents first
Check Enable advanced printing features.

Depending on your printer and system setup - the above are default settings
and should work okay. If your system is running some background programs
(antivirus, malware checker etc. ) those may cause a slowdown. Change the
above settings and see if there's a noticeable difference.

Bob S.

 

[Neil]

Thanks for you response

The current print settings are set to the default as you stated. I tried
changing some of the settings but the same result. I also turned off all
antivirus, etc., and still the same slow response.

If you can think of any other ideas - it would be greatly appreciated.
Neil

 

[Guest]

OMG Neil; this sounds just like my problem, except I can not print from the
new vista laptop thur my network an my desktop has xp. hope you can help