Sharing a printer on Homegroup

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Some years ago I set up a network and my wife could print from her PC on the printer attached to my machine. That worked for some time, and then stopped, possibly when Vista had to be reinstalled. Subsequently I never managed to get it working again, which I attributed to the difficulty of running XP and Vista together on a network.

When Windows 7 was introduced it was said that setting up a network between Win 7 machines was a piece of cake. On the assumption that the same would apply to Win8, and as my new PC and the laptop both run W8, my wife was persuaded to upgrade also.

Either I am really thick, or creating a network is still beset with difficulties. After creating a Homegroup on my machine, and adding hers, I tried to print one of her documents, only to be offered the following choices:

Send to One Note
Send to Nitro PDF Creator
Send to MS XPS Document Writer, whatever that may be.

No mention of the printer, and there doesn’t seem to be any mention of it in the Help files, other than saying Homegroup allows printers attached by USB – as this is – to be used by all members of the group.

Hopefully someone can give further guidance.

George

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See if this article is of any assistance:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-in-windows-7-with-homegroup/

It should apply to Windows 8 as well as Windows 7

Jerry

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Once you created the home, each device that wants to print from the host device needs to install the driver/software associated with that printer. Then the host machine has to have what files and hardware it wants to share enabled. jwitalka link source is a great place to start.

Have a look at this link …. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/install-printer-home-network#1TC=windows-7 then scroll down to “set up a network printer” and then click on the link to install a “network, wifi or bluetooth printer”.

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Thanks chaps, but this isn’t going to work. It seemed all too easy, until I tested the setup by trying to send something from the wife’s PC to the printer.

There was a detailed map of the group on her PC, including a fax machine which doesn’t exist, but the printer was absent. And, unlike the MS instructions, there was no ‘add a printer’ option on the printer page. The trouble-shooter facility was unable to find any problem.

The laptop produced the same result, except there were no options for the printer other than send to Nitro PDF Creator. At that point I abandoned the task for today, intending to have another look tomorrow.

However, when my wife tried to access the internet she was unable to connect. The list of available connections had grown to 18, most with poor reception, but headed by ‘Native WiFi Default’, which has so often caused problems in connecting, but our network had disappeared. Working on the assumption that the creation of the Homegroup must have messed up the settings, my wife’s PC was removed from the group and the internet then worked.

I think it best to remove the laptop before my machine, to avoid problems with trying to remove it from a non existent group. So it’s back to using a flash drive for anything she wants printed – I must teach her how to do it herself.

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Once you created the home, each device that wants to print from the host device needs to install the driver/software associated with that printer.

That seemed to be the problem, but it turned out to be a red herring.

I downloaded the driver to my wife’s PC, after some difficulty in deciding which was the latest version, but it could not install, as unable to find the printer. Told to disconnect the printer – achieved by disconnecting the wireless adaptor – then reconnect and try again, but it still couldn’t find the printer as Active Directory Domain was not available every time I tried.

A short while ago I decided to allow document sharing, which was omitted from the default setting, and discovered that I could access my files from the other PC. Next I reversed the process and accessed my wife’s files from my machine, and was able to print from there. This is a somewhat convoluted method of printing her docs, but probably quicker than the former method of putting them on a flash drive and then printing on my PC.

Having proved that the problem was not with Homegroup, which had been restored today, I returned to trying to print directly from the other PC. After a few more unsuccessful attempts I noticed that the list of printers had been extended, apart from Canon iP4700 series and the non-printers such as fax, Nitro reader and OneNote, there was now \STUDY Canon iP4700 series = my PC. Once that was made the default printer the problem was solved.

It is a mystery how the additional option suddenly appeared in the network list, unless related to the discovery one must use the drop down list in the print menu rather than just ctrl + P

So many hours devoted to this issue have come to a happy conclusion, thanks to the help received from loungers. My wife will be very pleased when she gets home from her literary group and hears the news.

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George,

I never, ever use Homegroups to create a network in Windows. I simply setup a workgroup, have all the computers as members of the workgroup and then share access to the resources I want to share (printers, drives, etc). Right now I have two 8 laptops, one 7 desktop and one Vista laptop sharing resources without any issues.

Here is how to setup a workgroup: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/join-domain-workgroup-homegroup
Here is a guide to sharing printers in workgroups: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/sharing-files-printers-help#sharing-files-and-printers=windows-81&v1h=win81tab2&v2h=win7tab1&v3h=winvistatab1&v4h=winxptab1

HTH

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You don’t need to join a homegroup just to print from a shared printer on the network. On the host machine, go to devices and printers, select your default printer, right click and select printer properties. Just follow this link, it has a nice video…you’ll need silverlight installed to view it….MS version of a flash player.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/share-printer#1TC=windows-7

Then once that is done, on your wife’s laptop, go to devices and printers, and at the top task bar area, select add printer tab, then select the network printer and let it do it’s auto search to find the network printer. Follow this video from youtube…btw…a great source for “how to’s”, start at the 4 minute mark.

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The situation is worse than at the time of my last post. Shortly before going to bed my wife wanted to see her emails but was unable to get a connection. Today it’s sporadic, usually connection is possible, but sometimes not, and as the network no longer appears in the list of connections there’s no way round it. She will have to use the Ethernet cable when unable to get online wirelessly, but having a cable trailing from room to room is a hazard, espec as the fractured bone in my foot is not fully healed.

Thanks for the link Rui, but it’s for W8.1 and bears little resemblance to W8. I have spent the entire afternoon trying to resolves the issue, but have made very little progress. Accessing Network from Start only shows two machines Ester and Study (me), no mention of the laptop, and a lot of options for start, services, tools, etc but nothing useful. Accessing System from Control Panel showed a workgroup named WORKGROUP.

Somehow I reached an option to create a new workgroup or network – I forget which – and created one called New Network/Workgroup. On the other machine it was possible to add the Cannon printer and set it as default, but when attempting to print a file to NewNetworkPrinter the location could not be found.

It seems I shall have to install Silverlight and take a look at bassfisher’s video, it may help, although for W7.

PS I did manage to turn on Network discovery, File and printer sharing and Allow Windows to manage workgroups connections on my machine. Update on Silverlighr tomorrow.

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I have no homegroup setup on my home network to share my printer across my home network…via wired and wireless using the above methods mentioned. I have 1 XP netbook, 2 Windows 7 laptops, 1 Windows 8.1 Pro laptop and 2 desktops running windows 7 Pro and 8.1 Pro. It works flawlessly.

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t is a mystery how the additional option suddenly appeared in the network list, unless related to the discovery one must use the drop down list in the print menu rather than just ctrl + P

Once you set the share files/printers on the host PC, that’s when it showed up on the device that’s wanting to use it…FYI, you don’t download the driver/software for the printer from the manufacturer, it’s installed via the network from the host PC. It’s all automated from the add printer tab in devices/printers area….provided that’s each PC has the shares set and it can take upward of 5 minutes or more for it to be discovered.

Very glad to here you have it working.

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