Keep losing access to printers on peer to peer network

I have a peer to peer network in my home office, the desktop machine is running w98 SE, and a laptop running XP home. Printers are connected to the desktop machine, and installed as network printers on the laptop. When I boot, I can access the printers from the laptop, but after a short time they are no longer available. In the Printers window of the laptop, the network printers are listed as 'printer not found on server, unable to connect'.

If I reboot the desktop, the printers are usually (but not always) available. The LAN remains active, and the two machines still see each other over the network.

More of an annoyance than a serious problem, but it is frustrating and saps productivity having to constantly reboot to get info printed off. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

What protocol(s)?

If IP, static or fixed addresses?

Hub/switch/direct connect network?

Workgroup name?

 

Newt,
thanks for the speedy reply. The config is as follows:

Sony Vaio Laptop, XP Home, with Local Area Connection (enabled, bridged), Network Bridge (enabled) and 1394 Connector (enabled, bridged).

connected to a Dell desktop, W98SE, via a crossover cable.
Desktop is running : Client for MS networks, Netbeui, File & Printer sharing for MS networks, TCP/IP for the 3Com etherlink card. File and printer sharing ... both boxes checked.

Workgroup is PERFORMANCE, and the two computers are Griff-lap and Griff-desk respectively.

I also have a dial-up to my ISP (ATTGLOBAL) running through modem on both machines.

As I said, the problem is intermittent. Initially the two printers connected to the desktop (a laser on the parallel port, and inkjet on a USB port) are visible and available from the laptop. After awhile, they become unavailable.

Hope this is clear enough.

I looked for the same sort of window on the XP box to show all of the various protocols, etc... but all i can find is the network connections dialogue with the icons I mentioned above. If there is somewhere else I need to look, let me know.

Thanks,

Griff