printer drivers for different platforms

[dstin]

I have a Dell desktop machine running Windows XP with a Dell printer attached
via USB. I have a Toshiba laptop running Vista with a built-in wireless
network card. My modem is DSL, connected to the desktop via ethernet cable.
I want to be able to print from the laptop to the printer wirelessly.
My wireless internet connection works great.
I have printer sharing turned on, and I can see the Dell printer and Shared
Files folder, and can even save to the Shared folder, but I can't get
anything to just print from the laptop.
Do I need to install the Vista version of the Dell printer driver on the XP
machine in order to make this work? Is it possible to have two versions of
the driver on the XP? Will that screw things up?

 

[Malke]

I have a Dell desktop machine running Windows XP with a Dell printer
attached
via USB. I have a Toshiba laptop running Vista with a built-in wireless
network card. My modem is DSL, connected to the desktop via ethernet
cable. I want to be able to print from the laptop to the printer
wirelessly. My wireless internet connection works great.
I have printer sharing turned on, and I can see the Dell printer and
Shared Files folder, and can even save to the Shared folder, but I can't
get anything to just print from the laptop.
Do I need to install the Vista version of the Dell printer driver on the
XP
machine in order to make this work? Is it possible to have two versions
of
the driver on the XP? Will that screw things up?

You need to:

1. Set up file/printer sharing (you've apparently done this);
2. Install Vista drivers on the Vista machine. Get them from Dell's website
for that specific model printer.

You will not wind up with two sets of drivers on the XP machine. The XP
machine will have XP drivers and the Vista machine will have Vista drivers.

Malke

 

[dstin]

Thanks, I have done that: Vista driver downloaded to laptop, XP driver was
already on the desktop since that's where the printer is connected. Still no
luck.
Saw a thread on the Dell site to the effect of needing to have the Vista
driver installed on the XP machine so that the Vista machine could
communicate properly with the printer. Does that make sense?
Thanks for your time.

 

[Malke]

Thanks, I have done that: Vista driver downloaded to laptop, XP driver was
already on the desktop since that's where the printer is connected. Still
no luck.
Saw a thread on the Dell site to the effect of needing to have the Vista
driver installed on the XP machine so that the Vista machine could
communicate properly with the printer. Does that make sense?

No, that won't help.

Do you get any error messages? Are you sure you've created the identical
user accounts/passwords? Please review my general network troubleshooting
steps below. I didn't include them in my first post to you because you said
you'd set up the networking and can share files, but there may be something
there that helps.

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful
firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the
built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having
identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying
to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer
Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on
XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this
will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a
third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm
Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're
fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance
with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you
would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall. DO
NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not
need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords
assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just
need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE
PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. If you wish a machine to boot directly
to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for convenience, you
can do this. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab).

Malke

 

[biznet5819]

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It sounds illogical, but you might be on the right track. I think that
I saw the same thread that talked about installing the Vista drivers
on the XP machine and I tried it today and it worked. It sounds like
you are at the same point that I was with being able to file shares,
but just not able to print. Well I have a Dell A940 printer and I went
to the Dell website and downloaded all of the Vista drivers for 32-bit
Vista. There is one important one that is a "patch/upgrade" that
removes all of the old XP drivers. Run that one first on your XP
machine that has the printer connected.

After machine reboots, install the rest of the Vista drivers on the XP
machine.
Of course these files were self extracting, so I just let them do
their thing.
After I finished installing all of the drivers, to my amazement I
could print from my laptop. I didn't have to map any drives or
anything. It just worked. You may want to try it. If you do, let me
know how it turns out.