Q: My daughter who is disabled spends a lot of time in her bedroom and when able uses a desktop Vista PC, however the amount of disability paraphernalia has left no room for a printer. There is an HP 2575 printer downstairs connected to an XP system; both PCs have Internet access via a Sky Netgear router. The grandchildren use Vista and Windows 7 laptops, again gaining Net access via the Sky box, and connect to the printer using USB cables.
Is it possible to somehow connect the printer to the Sky system to allow my daughter to communicate with it and print? As they are not all that PC literate a detailed explanation would be appreciated.
A: Assuming both PCs are connected to the router for Internet access the easiest solution is to make the printer on the XP system a shared device. Click Start, right-click My Computer, select Properties and note down the name of the Workgroup. Go to Start again, click Printers and Faxes, right-click the icon for the printer and choose Sharing. In the Properties dialog select Share This Printer, give it a name and click OK.
Now go to the Vista machine, click Start and right-click Computer, in the Computer Name, Domain and Workgroup Settings area click Change Settings and change the name of the workgroup so that it’s the same as on the XP system. Reboot the system so that it adopts the new workgroup name. Go to Start, click Network and you should see your XP PC appear, double-click it to see the shared printer, right-click and choose Connect. You’ll be prompted to install drivers if required.
Having done all that you should now be able to access the XP system’s printer from the Vista box – and indeed from any other PC on the network. However, the drawback is that the XP machine will need to be switched on in order for the printer to be available to the other systems.
A more technically elegant solution is to connect the printer directly to the router – the HP 2575 should already have an Ethernet port to allow you to do this, you’ll just need to get a cable. You’ll then be able to access it from any PC on the network without needing to have another PC switched on. For a printer without built-in networking you can buy a wireless printer server for around £50 to allow you to attach it directly to a LAN.
Use the Add Printer wizard to link to a shared printer on another networked PC
Originally featured in PCU 138
