Vista - Network printer stops printing when IP address changes

I'm using Vista Home Premium. I have a Brother 5170DN (direct network
connection) that has been working fine with my older computers running
earlier Windows versions.

The trouble is that when the IP address of the printer changes, Vista is no
longer able to print to it, so I end up having to reinstall. The
reinstallation adds a new TCP/IP port into the driver, and then it works fine
until the next time. Since my network is changing frequently right now, due
to reconfiguration, this is a pain.

Any ideas greatly appreciated. I have searched the support areas but
haven't seen anything that answers the question.

Thanks

5Circles wrote:Network printers should always have a static IP. Refer to your Brother
manual or their website as to how to do this. The static IP address you
assign should be one outside of your DHCP server's pool (usually a
router in a home situation).


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

"Malke" wrote:

I don't see why network printers should need to have a static IP if Windows
is finding them by name, and if previous Windows versions didn't have any
trouble.

Mike

5Circles wrote:
Because then you won't have any problems with dynamic IP addresses. But
if you don't want to set your network up properly, that's fine by me.
You'll continue to have problems.

EOT for me.


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

The Vista network printer search will create the network port using the
current DHCP address. If there is DNS available in your network and you can
ping the hostname configured on the printer network card, create a new
Standard TCP/IP port with the hostname rather than the IP address, then
assign this port to the printer.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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