Printer Sharing between XP Home and XP Pro

October 3, 2006 9:40 AM

Home networking: (1) Can you point me to a clear, brief guide to File and Printer sharing between an XP Home machine (directly connected to a parallel-port printer) and an XP Pro machine on the same LAN? (2) Is it possible to do Printer Sharing without File Sharing in this setup? There have been many related posts, but I haven't found one that directly addresses the Home/Pro and print-only issues. Thanks.
posted by Dave 9 to computers & internet (6 comments total)

You can get a guide here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/honeycutt_july2.mspx

You have to install "File and printer sharing" on both computer from Network, but you dont have to share files.
Also remember all drives are shared by default (they are hidden shares) so make sure you have passwords set up!
posted by PowerCat at 10:13 AM on October 3, 2006

Also remember all drives are shared by default (they are hidden shares) so make sure you have passwords set up!

You shouldn't actually need to worry about that bit too much given that this is enabled by default.
posted by ed\26h at 10:56 AM on October 3, 2006

Thanks, Power, but that guide doesn't work for me. I think it assumes that printer/file sharing is already enabled, which is not the case here. All we have, so far, is the 2 machines linked to a router, infrastructure mode, sharing an internet connection. And all I want to add, for now, is the ability to share the XP Home machine's printer.

And thanks, ed, but the only password we seem to need or use is for wireless access to the network by the XP Pro machine. The router is configured for WPA security.
posted by Dave 9 at 12:37 PM on October 3, 2006

uhh... if I understand your question correctly, you're trying to eliminate the file from the file and printer sharing?
You can't. Sorry.
You have to enable both.

http://www.geekgirls.com/windowsxp_home_network.htm
or read below...

Now, for enabling it. It's easy. Start | Printers and Faxes
Right click on the printer in question, click "sharing"
If that's not enabled... properties | sharing tab should do it.
This will ask if you want to run a wizard blah blah. Ignore it, just 'share the printer'.
Your other machine should automagically see the printer now in the printers menu.
If not, in windows explorer (on xp pro machine), type \\
where is the name of the computer on which you shared your connection. You can find said name (if you don't know it) by hitting + or right clicking on my computer, and going to properties
Click "computer name" tab.
The second button says "network id" click this, and your computername is there.

Once you're connected to the winxp home machine, you will see the printer there, I think you can just double click it to add it to your printers.

Oh, one more thing, if the \\computername doesn't work for you, you can just use \\ if you don't know it for the home machine, go to "run" type "cmd". In the box that opens, type ipconfig. The ip address will be in the same format as above.


*whew* Long and rambley. Post a reply here if you need more info/explanation, I'll check back

cheers!
posted by defcom1 at 5:56 PM on October 3, 2006

I'll try that. Thanks for your time.
posted by Dave 9 at 6:14 PM on October 3, 2006

defcom1 - I got the remote printing, though I'm not sure exactly which steps I followed. Thanks again.
posted by Dave 9 at 8:04 PM on October 6, 2006