Printer Sharing on two Win XP Boxes

I've setup numerous networked printers on Win XP Pro networks, but am having one heck of a time doing the same with this issue. There are two WinXP Home computers (one desktop, one laptop) using a Linksys WRT54G v.6 Wireless Router.

I've shared out a Epson C88 printer off of the desktop computer with the shared name: epsonc88. The laptop is connected wirelessly to the router and cannot see the desktop computer, let alone the shared printer.

Ping requests from the Laptop to the Desktop failed. Just in case ping requests were disabled somewhere, I tried connecting directly to the shares by opening a run box on the Laptop and typing \\<computername> and it failed to connect again. I checked to see if Windows Firewall was turned off (it was) and checked the Linksys router for any firewall rules which deny communications between the WLAN and LAN (there weren't). Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2006 was installed on the desktop, and once I disabled that, I was able to ping from the laptop to the desktop as well as connect to the shares.

Here's where it gets strange. I can connect to the shared documents folder on the desktop without a hitch. When I try to connect to the printer, I get the following error:

Operation could not be completed. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server. For more information, click Help

I don't know if this is one of those Win XP Home networking limitations or not. Without the router blocking traffic, Windows Firewall off, and NIS disabled, what else could be stopping this?

Thanks in advance for the help!
-Mike in Denver

 

For the printer: have you added it to the laptop? Using printer n faxes "“ add printer "“ browsed for it under network printer? Drivers should automatically be added from desktop.

For NIS if it didn’t automatically find the network and add it to trust control under firewall you’ll need to add mac address manually.

 

Yeah, I've tried browsing the network through the Wizard's "Browse Network" function. I can see the printer, but still receive the same error.

I'll go back into NIS and see if it has a trusted MAC/Network option, although I don't recall it having that. The controls were rather limited compared to more comprehensive antivirus/firewalls I'm used to.