Vista Tutorial - Connecting to an XP PC printer to a Vista..

Before making this thread I searched and tried everything since last night.. I finally gave up. As you can see I'm trying to connect my Vista x64 laptop to a shared printer on my network which is running on an XP machine. I can see the PC and printer but when I hit select, it fails to connect to it because it keeps telling me wrong drivers installed or something and it tells me to search for them. What I did after wards was connect the printer locally to my laptop to install the drivers needed for Vista. No luck when trying to connect to it again wireless. Same error message.

Any help? I'm new to Vista..

Printer: Brother MFC-7420 (it's already on shared)

You have to be in the same subnet. File and Print sharing enabled on both computers. You go into the printer folder and share the printer.

\\computer\printer_share is the printer.

Well, I have the firewall with Norton and it's set on shared. I think my Windows firewall is disabled so it wouldn't matter.

I don't get what your saying though? The printer is shared from the host PC.

As you already know you need to install the vista drivers for the printer onto your laptop.
Try looking here Windows Vista Support for Brother Printer/MFC/FAX/DCP

True. But shouldn't it had when I connected the printer to the laptop locally? It did the install automatically and installed some needed drivers for the printer.

On XP computer, you configure the printer and set up printer sharing in the printer setup.

You need file and print services enabled.
Your router needs to allow file and print services

On Vista, you add a printer, choose network printer, go to your workgroup, find the XP computer and under it should be your printer.

both computers must be in the same subnet and workgroup, you also need them to have security rights to browse for the files and printers.

Ok, I'm getting somewhat closer. I found the shared printer and I even added the printer so it looks like it works.. Thing is, I can't print. Test page isn't working.

I seriously cannot get it to work.. It's connected to the printer but it's not printing.

Do you have rights to print on that computer from your Vista account? I usually put the same username and password on all workgroup computers.

I should be able to. It just keeps saying error printing when I print from my laptop. I've already connected my other desktop PC on XP to that same printer and no problems..