Windows Vista Forums

new to network printer sharing, driver question

  1. #1


    Qfreed Guest

    new to network printer sharing, driver question

    PC1 wantes to use shared printer connected to PC2. Does PC1 use the printer
    driver installed on PC2 or was a driver copy placed on PC1 when printer
    sharing was set up?
    The reason I ask is I have a Vista and XP wired network. The XP has some
    legacy hardware on it whose drivers are not Vista compatible. I can use the
    printer connected to the XP from the Vista PC, but not the scanner. The
    scanner shows up on my shared devices on the Vista PC, but calls from
    programs will no share it. I'm assuming it's a driver access problem, but I
    don't know if the Vista PC is trying to access the scaner driver on the XP PC
    or if the problem is that it couldn't add it to its own list of drivers?



      My System SpecsSystem Spec

  2. #2


    Malke Guest

    Re: new to network printer sharing, driver question

    Qfreed wrote:

    > PC1 wantes to use shared printer connected to PC2. Does PC1 use the printer
    > driver installed on PC2 or was a driver copy placed on PC1 when printer
    > sharing was set up?
    > The reason I ask is I have a Vista and XP wired network. The XP has some
    > legacy hardware on it whose drivers are not Vista compatible. I can use the
    > printer connected to the XP from the Vista PC, but not the scanner. The
    > scanner shows up on my shared devices on the Vista PC, but calls from
    > programs will no share it. I'm assuming it's a driver access problem, but I
    > don't know if the Vista PC is trying to access the scaner driver on the XP PC
    > or if the problem is that it couldn't add it to its own list of drivers?
    1. You always install the drivers for the correct operating system on
    the computer which doesn't have the printer connected to it. So you
    would set up your Local Area Network (LAN) sharing first and then
    install Vista drivers for that model printer on the Vista machine. It
    depends on how the printer drivers are written whether the driver
    installation routine has a wizard that will find the printer connected
    to the other machine or whether you need to use the "Add Printer" wizard
    on Vista.

    2. Consumer-level scanners cannot be shared over the network. There are
    network scanners, but they are many thousands of dollars (USD) and
    usually work by scanning the images onto a server.


    Malke
    --
    Elephant Boy Computers
    www.elephantboycomputers.com
    "Don't Panic!"
    MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

      My System SpecsSystem Spec

  3. #3


    Qfreed Guest

    Re: new to network printer sharing, driver question

    Thank you. I thought when I set up file and printer sharing from my Windows
    Vista PC that Windows posted some note during the process that it was copying
    or installing the shared device drivers from my XP PC. Seems Vista did it
    automatically for me so later I wasn't sure what had happened. Now I am.
    Thank you.
    And thank you for the info on scanners. You saved me a lot of time trying
    to access its driver to find out if it could be shared. Since its Vista
    incompatible I thought that was the problem-that it couldn't be installed on
    my Vista OS. Now that I know scanners (non-network ready) can't be shared
    I'll drop the whole endeavor.
    --
    qfreed


    "Malke" wrote:

    > Qfreed wrote:

    > > PC1 wantes to use shared printer connected to PC2. Does PC1 use the printer
    > > driver installed on PC2 or was a driver copy placed on PC1 when printer
    > > sharing was set up?
    > > The reason I ask is I have a Vista and XP wired network. The XP has some
    > > legacy hardware on it whose drivers are not Vista compatible. I can use the
    > > printer connected to the XP from the Vista PC, but not the scanner. The
    > > scanner shows up on my shared devices on the Vista PC, but calls from
    > > programs will no share it. I'm assuming it's a driver access problem, but I
    > > don't know if the Vista PC is trying to access the scaner driver on the XP PC
    > > or if the problem is that it couldn't add it to its own list of drivers?
    >
    > 1. You always install the drivers for the correct operating system on
    > the computer which doesn't have the printer connected to it. So you
    > would set up your Local Area Network (LAN) sharing first and then
    > install Vista drivers for that model printer on the Vista machine. It
    > depends on how the printer drivers are written whether the driver
    > installation routine has a wizard that will find the printer connected
    > to the other machine or whether you need to use the "Add Printer" wizard
    > on Vista.
    >
    > 2. Consumer-level scanners cannot be shared over the network. There are
    > network scanners, but they are many thousands of dollars (USD) and
    > usually work by scanning the images onto a server.
    >
    >
    > Malke
    > --
    > Elephant Boy Computers
    > www.elephantboycomputers.com
    > "Don't Panic!"
    > MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
    >

      My System SpecsSystem Spec

new to network printer sharing, driver question

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