I need some advice for setting up printer sharing on our home network. Here's the history of what I've done so far and a description of our network.
I've been attempting to set up shared printers on our home network without success. I've read just about every related help file I can find and have followed the given procedures.
We're both using Dell computers with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and McAfee Firewall via a Linksys router hub and we're both members of the Workgroup MSHome.
I can see each of the PCs and can access them to click on the Printers and Faxes folder, but that's as far as I can get before being told I don't have the needed permissions to go further. (I have admin security level so that's not it.)
I've used the Network Connections, Set Up a Home Network and Share Printer wizards; each completing without error.
I've checked Windows Firewall on both machines and all the needed exceptions and ports are marked to allow shared printing and files.
I've deleted and reinstalled the local printers on each of our computers (mom has a Lexmark Inkjet attached to hers and I have a Dell Laser printer attached to mine; we want to share both of them), set them as the default printers, and set up sharing for each of them. (Yes, I've cleared cache, temp files and rebooted each of the PCs.)
I'm familiar with networking (used to be a Novell 4.0 systems admin, and have set up Windows NT networks -- but that was more than 10 years ago) and tried setting up drive mapping to our respective PCs, but that didn't work.
I've checked McAfee Firewall to see if there was anything there that had to be changed for printer sharing on a home network, could not find anything.
I know the router hub is working because we can both access the internet via our connections to it. I checked the set up software for it and did not see anything that would fix the printer sharing problem.
In the Windows Help and Support library, I find the following info related to what's new with Service Pack 2. This points to what the problem might be but I don't know how to troubleshoot/fix it since I've already done what it says to do.
Quote:What will change for an existing home network:
If Windows Firewall is turned on, information about a printer, such as "Ready" or "Paused," in the Printers and Faxes folder, will not appear immediately (but it will appear soon), and your computer will not receive notifications (such as "print job completed," or "printer out of paper") from your printer.
If Windows Firewall is enabled on the computer to which your printer is connected, and the file and printer sharing ports on the Exceptions tab of Windows Firewall are not selected, other computers on your network will not be able to connect to that computer to use the printer.
Using an Internet gateway device is recommended, rather than Internet Connection Sharing. An Internet gateway device is a piece of hardware that you buy at a computer store. This is also sometimes called a base station or a residential gateway. Your network connects to the Internet through this device.
You will be prompted in the Network Setup Wizard as to whether you want to enable file and printer sharing and open or close the necessary ports. If you choose to turn off file and printer sharing, the wizard will disable any existing network shares.
Any ideas/suggestions on what to try next?
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