Vista - Printer Sharing suddenly stopped working

After 1 and a half years of working properly, Printer sharing stopped working. "Server" machine with the printer is Vista. It uses printer fine. Router is Linksys WRT150n. 2 laptops, and second PC all with XP. second pc is connected to router by cable, not wireless."Server Machine" sees all machines on the Network page. Workgroup name matches on all 4 machines. The 3 XP machines cannot find the printer. When I run "add a printer" all I get is "Micrsosoft Windows Network" on the browse for printer page. I used to be able to see all the pc's and the printer attached to them. No new firewalls on any machines, I have disabled network discovery and printer sharing, and then reenabled. I have created a new workgroup name in hopes of fixing problem. I have run the network wizards. HELP!!!

(Self-plagiarised from another post...)

Can the machines ping each other by name? Can they ping by IP?

Can you connect successfully in both directions using UNC (Universal Naming Convention): start, run, \\OtherPcName\ValidShareName ?

There's no point troubleshooting "printer sharing" issues unless all that works successfully.

G-Day,

I can ping my other xp machines, but not the vista "server"... what do I do now??

Disable all firewalls temporarily and try everything once more.

Can the other machines now ping the Vista machine by IP? By name?

Can Vista ping everything else?

Does Vista have a valid IP address and does typing IPCONFIG /RENEW at a CMD prompt work successfully? (it should just drop down to the prompt a second or two later)

Vista can ping everything else by name and by ip, and ipconfig/renew works. both xp machines can ping one another, but neither can ping vista

One-way pings (box1 can ping box2 but vice versa fails) means you've got an active firewall somewhere in that mix, most likely on the Vista machine. It's blocking incoming ICMP "echos" (ping), but allowing outbound and responses, which is why the ping is one-way.

Deactivate all firewalls while you're troubleshooting this issue. It'll save you a few grey hairs.

ALMOST THERE!! i can see the printers again... It was the mcafee firewall... now when I attempt to share the printer it asks for a password... how can I eliminate that?