Trouble printing to network printer

[Art]

I'm trying to print from my laptop to an HP Deskjet 932 attached
to my desktop, with no success.

- I'm using Home Premium; the desktop runs XP
- network printing worked okay when my laptop ran XP
- I have had no other Vista problems over six months
- the printer works just fine from the desktop machine
- the printer is shared, and is the default
- the printer shows up just fine as the network printer
when I try to print from my laptop
- I can look at print preferences okay
- if I try to look at printer properties, a window (or
dialog box) flits open/closed on the laptop screen
- no print file gets through to the print queue

Any help would be appreciated!

Art

 

[Art]

I saw a suggestion in this newsgroup to add a local port
directed to //desktop/hp_deskjet, so I did this ...and
now I have a functioning network printer again!

Does this mean that the problem lies in incompatible
printer drivers? (ie, the XP driver on my desktop, and
the Vista driver on my laptop)?

I haven't tried another suggestion to install the Vista
printer driver on the XP desktop. Maybe that would work, too?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Art

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

Usually when the Preferences page does not load this is a driver issue.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];kbhowto

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

 

[Guest]

Art

I have the same problem as you (vista laptop printing over wireless network
to HP connected to a desktop running XP). Your solution sounds like it would
work for me. How do you add a port?

 

[Art]

Hi Tom,

Here's the procedure:
- Go to Control Panel > Printers
- Click on "Add a printer" in title bar
- Click on "Add a local printer"
- Select "Create a new port"
- With "Local Port" selected, click on "Next"
- Fill "Enter a port name" with:
- \\desktopname\printersharename
(in my case \\arts_vaio\printer5)")
- Click on "Next" and finish

This worked for me, but, just for the experience
I might try installing a Vista driver in my Vista machine.

Art