Vista - Printer Sharing From Vista x64 To XP x86

Hello all. I would like to thank you in advance for any answers that are given in this thread. I am an MCSE and would consider myself pretty savy overall, but this particular problem (which exists in my home network) has me frustrated.

I have a PC running Vista Ultimate x64. Attached to that PC (via USB) is a HP Photosmart C3180. My wife's laptop is running XP Professional x86. I am trying to allow her to print to the printer attached to my Vista x64 PC.

I install the printer properly and confirm it working on my Vista x64 PC. I then share it out under the name HPC3180. I disable password protected sharing and under the security settings of the printer I give "Anonymous Logon" permission to access the printer.

I know generally I would have to specify the x86 version of the driver under the "Additional Drivers" area in the properties of the printer; but in this case I do not know where to get the .INF files. I can download the drivers for the 32 bit version of XP from HP's site, but they aren't self extracting EXE files so I cannot get the INF file out of them to use.

I even tried setting it up (on XP x86 laptop) as a "Local Printer" with a "Local Port" that points the printer. I then tried to use a variety of older and generic drivers. At worst it refused to print entirely. At best I got some sort of seemingly random output from the printer.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank You Again,

Richard R.

--
Thanks for your help Richard


"RichardR" wrote:

Hello
I was wondering if you had any luck getting the printer problem solved. I
have the same issue. Can not print from my laptop to the desktop printer.
Thanks Dick
--
Thanks for your help Richard


"RichardR" wrote:

Not so far.

The only sure fire solution that I have seen so far is to purchase a print server and hook the printer up to one end and connect my home network to the other.

I think that is the balance between time / money that is going to have to be struck.

=?Utf-8?B?RGljaw==?= <Dick@xxxxxx> wrote in
newsF7E9D58-07C7-4582-B81B-EEE1B7F3F6F7@xxxxxx:
The original poster was able to download an x86 driver for the printer,
but for some reason this driver did not include an INF file which would
have allowed it to be installed as an "Additional Driver" on the x64
system.

Provided that you can locate the correct x86 and x64 drivers for your
printer then an alternative approach to network printing would be
something like this:
1) Install the x64 driver on your "server" and share it
2) Install the x86 driver on your "client" system to an existing port
such as LPT1
3) Go to the print queue you have created on the client and create a
"local" port. Do this by opening the "Port" tab on the Print queue
properties and do the following:
a) Click on "Add Port"
b) Choose "Local port" as the type
c) Enter the full share name as the name. If your "server" is
\\MYSERVER and the share name was "MyPrinter" this would be \\MYSERVER
\MyPrinter

The only difference between this and the "Additional Drivers" method is
that the client can manage all of the driver properties locally, instead
of getting the settings from the server. Otherwise this should just work.

Judy