networking a printer

The networking at work has been a nightmare which I have been faffing about with for the last two weeks. As I was a beginner its took me a while.
With various web links sent to me by D-link I have managed to be able to see one file on everyones pc (We can all see one file called Share) which I created as part of a step by step guide to networking.
http://www.homenethelp.com/web/howto/net.asp
However I don't think this is the correct way to do things. I am now having trouble setting up a network printer. I have a printer attatched to my pc and sharing is enabled however shouldn't you just be able to click on "my network places" on one of the other pc's and be able to see my printer in there?
How do I get it so its just like having the printer attatched directly to their pc?

Cheers







DSL-604+ router wireless
DWL-520+ adapters wireless
All Win XP Home Pc's.
All sharing broadband internet connection.

 

First off, each 9X/ME will for sure need the printer drivers installed just as if they printer was locally connected. Not a problem since it should hopefull happen when they connect to it via the network. If not, just install the printer to a local port (without having the device attached) and then the network connection will use the same drivers/setup stuff.

Depending on your network, if the printer is hosted by a NT/2K/XP PC (either directly attached or on the network with the PC acting as the print server for it), then the other NT/2K/XP PCs on your network should use the drivers from the print server rather than needing local ones.

As follows (and I'm using PC1 as the 'print server' name and sharing the printer as 'share-print' but you need to use the real names):

- Attach the printer to a PC and get it working.
- Set up file & printer sharing (already done if you are sharing files/folders now)
- Share the printer (exact method will vary depending on OS, etc. but there should be an option when you right-click the printer icon on the print server)
- On the other PCs, do the 'add printer' thing and select to add a network printer. Rather than messing around with a search, just point the PC to the network printer by putting the following in the location line
\\PC1\share-print

Should be a done deed at this point. Be aware that the only thing the network connected PCs can do is print. If the device has faxing or copying or other features, they won't be available except from the print server itself.

An additional note regarding the router/switch you are using. The product description is written to make NAT sound like it is a firewall.

You need to know that NAT isn't a firewall. Granted, it does offer some protection but either you need to be running a software firewall on each PC or you need a different router/switch with a firewall built in that will protect all the systems. It will make your setup a little more complicated but not much. You simply need to set each firewall to allow access from the others on your network.

I know you've already spent the $$ for your router/switch but if you want wireless with a good firewall, D-Link AirPlus Enhanced 2.4GHz Wireless Router will do the job. It has a 'stateful' firewall so will not only allow open/closed ports for both inbound and outbound packets but on an open port, will examine the packets trying to get thru to see if they seem normal and safe for that particular port. Since it's done in hardware it will be fast enough that you won't have any performance hits.

It sounds from your original post that you have other remaining issues. Say exactly what and we can probably give you a fix for them.

 

kind of sorted but not

I have done everything else you said and generally it seems to be working fine. But!!!! Every so often my ip address keeps changing on its own My latest is this. Yesterday my ip address ended in 4 and today it ends in 9. This kind of complicates things 'cos I then have to change the settings on the other computers so they can still use the printer.

Very confused.

Don't know if this has anything to do with it but a few days after I set all this up I did get one or two warning signs saying that I have an IP conflict on my system. How do I check to see if this is still the case?

 

If the other PCs are connecting using the PC name & printer name, there should not be a problem.

I.e., if the printer is shared as \\PC1\the-printer and all the other PCs are set up to use \\pc1\the-printer

I'm assuming here that you are allowing the DLink device to provide DHCP services and assign all the IP addresses.

The other option that I prefer for a small network is to
- disable DHCP on the router
- assign static IP addresses to all the PCs
- build a hosts file with that information and place a copy on each PC.

Briefly (and assuming you have fewer than 253 PCs plus the DLink)

The router will have an address it wants to use. Normally either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 depending on how it was designed. It should keep that address. I'll use 192.168.0.x for the network but if yours is 192.168.1.x, just substitute.

PC
name PC Address
Joe1 192.168.0.2 (printer attached and named print-thing)
Fred 192.168.0.3
Mary 192.168.0.4

Subnet mask 255.255.255.0

Default gateway 192.168.0.1

Hosts file (named hosts with no extension and created using a text editor like notepad or edit or any non-word processing app)

192.168.0.1 router
192.168.0.2 Joe1
192.168.0.3 Fred
192.168.0.4 Mary
192.168.0.5

The file needs to be in c:\windows on any 9x/ME PCs
c:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc on any NT4/2K PCs
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc on any XP PCs

 

I am not sure that this will help you but my network that i set up at home(3 computers) I used a hub. My computer has a printer, and the computer in my office has a computer. when i networked them together i had the same problem... I just told the computer to search for new hardware, ie. printer, and it found it right away. I hope i helped. Good luck.

 

Also keep in mind that you will only print as fast as the file can get to the printer. I am networked with 802.11b and it sometimes takes up to 10 minutes for the printer to start printing!

Russ