xp wont print to shared printer

Ladies and gents I need your assistance.

Situation: have just installed a 3 node wireless network ( d-link ). One laptop with XP Home, 1 PC with 98 2nd, 1 PC with 98 and this one is an old at box type system.

PC with 98 2nd has local printer Epson Stylist C62. Have doubled checked all shares and they are correct on all machines.

Both PC's can see network and can print to the printer.

XP laptop is where the problem is. I can browse the network and see the printer. I can even install the printer on this XP machine but when I go to print it gives message " test page failed " naturally I am printing a test page but same basic results when using word app.

How can I install it, see it but cant print to it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Add a local port and use the UNC path.

 

When I take a look at the port settings in properties it is set correct at \\brenda\epson

So not sure if you mean I should do another one or what.

 

To eliminate some possible sources of the problem and assuming Brenda has an IP of 192.168.1.2 and the printer is shared as epson, try \\192.168.1.2\epson and see if that works even though the name doesn't.

If yes, we got one glitch to fix. If no, then a different one.

 

Interesting. I will try at clients tomorrow and I'll let you know.

Thanks.

 

Newt

Actually, the ip address of Brenda is 192.168.0.100 and using the ip instead of the actual name Brenda seems to have done the trick.

Now there is an apparent name translation problem but why ??? You seemed to know a possible reason if this worked so what was your reasonings ???

And thanks.

 

Resolving the people names we like to use to the numeric names computers must use can be done quite a few different ways. But your client apparently isn't using any of them.

And I'd strongly suspect some other network things aren't doing well either.

By far the simplest solution for a very small peer network with static addresses (which sounds like the case here) is to build a hosts file to do the job for you.

In case you aren't familiar with them, they were the very first means used to do the name<-->address resolution. Old Unix trick but one that all IP systems have adopted. And a PC running any Microsoft OS will check for a hosts file first to do the job. If it can, nothing else need be checked.

For this network, all you need is a text file named hosts (no extension) and placed where the PC expects to find it. 9X looks in %systemroot%\ (probably c:\windows). NT/2K/XP look in %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\

The file is simple and consists of an ip address followed by at least one blank space followed by the PC name (and variations). You can put in comments if they follow a # symbol. For instance

192.168.0.100 brenda Brenda BRENDA #caps & lower case used so it will be found no matter how typed
192.168.0.101 ralph Ralph RALPH
192.168.0.102 shirley Shirley SHIRLEY

There are other ways to do the job but none is as fast and for a small, stable system, none is as easy. Make the file then place a copy on each PC.

 

Newt

Actually I do remember the host file from some time ago. Totally spaced it out until you mentioned it here.

But the XP machine was able immediately to see the printer on brendas machine, it was able to install the xp drivers through the Add Printer wizard. Everything the way it should go. Except when tried to print. So why did it have problems with printing to \\brenda\epson. Brenda and the ip address are basically the same critter. Correct ? So again why could it not print.

 

People I followed this thread because I have the same problem on my home network. I have 5 ports 4 with 98 2nd ed and one XP home two of my 98 computers have printers attached and can see them on the networks with the XP. But I can print to only one of the printers. I tried assigning a fixed IP address and adding to the hosts file on the XP and niether worked what are the other reasons this can happen?

 

Can you see the one printer you cant print to through network neighborhood ???

Can you install the one printer on the XP machine through add printer wizard ??? But it still wont print. Might try using the ip address of the printer and then the share name through the printer wizard. Worked for me as the above message says it did. Still not sure why the naming like the numeric ip instead of the actual name of the machine but it did work.

 

Try This

On the XP machine
Go into regedit and go to this key and delete it, make sure you make a backup of your registry FIRST please.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SOFTWARE
Microsoft
Windows
CurrentVersion
Explorer
RemoteComputer
NameSpace

DELETE THIS ONE
{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

Then try the \\Brenda\Printer and see what happens....
if nothing, then restore your registry.