Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with WindowsXP and Printer

Any experiance with Faxing from within Windows... sans modem?

TrueVox — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:36:10 -0800

Anyone familiar with using a Fax/Printer to send a fax from Windows XP, connecting to a Fax/Scanner/Printer?? At my company we have one fax machine for all 15 of us, which would be fine. Except we're fairly spread out throughout a few different rooms. However, all of our machines are networked to each other. I realize that Windows has an inbuilt function for sending faxes, but everything it wants to do for me requires a modem (which few of our computers have). I'm thinking there MUST be some way to make our computers look to the Fax/Printer/Scanner combo we have out in the front office, but I can't for the life of me figure it out!

Any suggestions? Or, failing that, any alternative solutions? We're trying to avoid pay-per-use services such as eFax, so that's right out. We'd like to avoid buying modems for all our machines, but if that's the only way to fax from Windows (which seems strange to me), then I suppose that's what we'll end up doing.

Thanks in advance!!!

Please help me get my hand-me-down printer working!

KokuRyu — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:57:21 -0800

I need help installing a printer driver. It used to be installed, but it is not anymore. Machine has XP Pro installed. The printer is a Lexmark C510. I used to access it via a network connection (by plugging the computer into the wall or whatever) in our small office. The printer was connected to a coworker's machine and had an IP address.

The printer now resides in my office, and is connected to my laptop via USB. But it will not print.

I don't have a disk with the printer driver. I tried downloading a driver from the Lexmark website. But nothing works.

Opening the 'printers and faxes' control panel, the Lexmark C510 icon still exists, as though it were still a network printer.

Any suggestions would be great.

Where do I find occasional computer help?

Ms. Next — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:25:22 -0800

What is a good website for computer (and related hardware) help? I know there are several websites that allow people to post questions about software, hardware, drivers, but which one would you recommend?

I'm not very knowledgable about computers and software, but am not a total newbie either. I sporadically (once, twice a year?) have computer questions that even with Google and the likes I can't figure out myself.

(For example, the kind of questions I'd be searching help for: In this case it's about installing a "plug and play" Lexmark printer on Windows XP where I can't properly install the drivers: not from the cd rom that came with it, nor from the Lexmark website. Calling the manufacturers (printer and laptop) hasn't helped so far).

How can I get my laptop to print wirelessly again?

stleric — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:15:48 -0800

How can I get my laptop to print wirelessly to an HP DeskJet 6980 like it used to? Okay, so I've got a ThinkPad T42 with XP Home SP2 and Intel 2200BG.

I bought one of HP's DeskJet 6980 inkjets with wireless built in, and I used to be able to connect and print to it flawlessly for the first few months, but just as soon as I installed this IPSec client for my school's wireless network (I never got the client to work), I couldn't print to my printer wirelessly anymore. My laptop still connects to the printer's ad hoc network, but I can't get access anything that requires communication between the computer and printer (printer status, remaining ink levels, etc.), and every time I attempt to print, the print job hangs for about a minute and I get this message. Trying to ping it through DOS returns some message along the lines of "configuration error." Given that I could never get the IPSec software to work, I uninstalled it, but the problem remained. (Incidentally, the laptop still works just fine with every other wireless network.)

I've tried contacting HP support on the issue both over their online chat (not helpful at all) and their phone number (at least the guy tried), but nothing that they suggested ultimately helped. I've tried different IP and firewall configurations, I've attempted all sorts of ipconfig trickery, I've reset the printer to factory settings several times, and I've uninstalled and reinstalled the printer software probably about 5 or 6 times. Every time, it still works completely the same - it prints fine and easily via USB, it works over an ethernet/patch cable after about 10 minutes of cajoling.

The curious thing, though, is that I can get it to print wirelessly just as easily as it used to when, and only when I connect the computer via ethernet cable to my desktop (which, incidentally, is neither wireless, nor is it connected to the printer). Every time, I connect the cable, the local area network icon in the system tray comes up with the little yellow/exclamation point warning bubble (this happens every time), I select "repair connection," and like magic, not only does this let me access shared folders on the other computer, the wi-fi printing on my laptop works again. I know that repairing the wired connection seems to go through some things like renewing the IP address and clearing (I think) NetBT cache or something to that effect. Nevertheless, after that, every time I wake the computer from standby or restart, I can't print wirelessly again.

So what gives? How can I get my laptop to do whatever it's doing when it connects to the other computer and repairs automatically, or figure out what the IPSec install screwed up in the first place?

If anyone can actually help me out with this, much, much, much thanks - I've been trying to fix this for months...