How do you share a printer on a wireless network
When you first buy your home printer or all-in-one printer, fax and scanner, the first concern is to learn how to share printer and faxes over the home or office wireless network your computer belongs to. Printer sharing is usually done very easy in windows xp and windows vista, as long as the other computers that need to connect to the wireless printer share the same protocols as the main pc, the one the printer is connected to.
A network printer needs to be installed on all computers that belong to the network. If you have a mixed xp – vista network, let’s say you have windows xp installed on the main desktop computer, the one that has a direct hardware connection to the printer. Let’s assume that the printer has wireless possibilities but it is wired to the pc. A vista laptop is trying to connect to the printer wirelessly. Both the printer and router are wireless, so there’s really a good wireless networking going around in the room.
The first thing you have to do is to share the printer to the network. If the Vista laptop is encountering difficulties to connect to the wireless network then there is probably a security problem involved. If the network is not secured then there’s a high chance that the vista operating system will not allow the laptop to connect unless a password and username are entered. You should simply edit the wireless network’s setting from the host desktop pc and protect it before trying to connect the laptop to it.
Enter the user name and password chosen about onto the laptop, and if the printer is properly installed on the desktop computer and shared, it would appear in the shared items list viewed by the laptop’s user. By double clicking on the printer you should get the installation prompt. At this point, either windows will detect automatically the driver’s files, or you might be required to use an installation cd or even download the most recent printer drivers from the internet.
After the installation dialogues ends, the network printer should be tested from all computers that are intending to communicate with it. A basic test page must be printed using both direct wireless printer connection and the network router’s connection. If the data on the page is not similar to the one that was sent for printing (if data is scrambled, not understandable or coded), it means that the printer is accessed from an inconvenient port. See default printer port on the desktop computer and if needed change it. Some printers support wireless connections from devices outside the wireless networks, like cell phones or other wireless data disks. If you want to test this, you should search for wireless devices in range from your cellular phone, and once the printer name has been detected simply connect to it and then “send” the documents you want printed.
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Filed Under: Wireless
