Vista - Canon Printer Sharing between XP 32 and Vista 64

I have not seen this specific case described.

My printer is a Canon Pixma MP780.

I have several XP Pro 32 bit systems, and one Vista Ultimate 64.

File sharing works between any two machines, so no permission problems.

The printer works locally on any machine, using the latest Canon drivers.

Vista can not install the printer if it is on XP, saying no suitable drivers
available.
XP can not install the printer if it is on Vista, saying no suitable drivers
available.

I am getting tired of carrying this printer between systems - it is not a
portable...

The Canon Vista driver package does not include printer .inf files; I think
it is built in to Vista.

The Canon XP driver package does not satisfy the No appplicable Driver - on
either XP or Vista.

I do not have a partition available to install Vista 86 to grab drivers from
there...

I need more suggestions...

Thanks!

Robert

One more test point. I do have Vista 32 installed as a Vmware Image. This
machine was able to connect to my XP Pro 32 computer (where the printer is
today) and install drivers. So in theory I have some version of 32 bit
drivers on this Vista machine.

What do I need to copy from here - or anywhere - to my real Vista 64 machine
to enable it to use the printer on XP Pro 32?

Eventually, I want the printer to live on the Vista 64 machine. Question
then would be how do I keep XP Pro happy?

Thanks!

Robert

take the vista drivers off of the vista computer and place them in the
drivers folder on ur xp computer for the printer

shared printers normally have a folder where all the drivers available are
stored.

bill

"Robert" <Robert@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:CC84D257-5288-4013-AF81-ED345E12B631@microsoft.com...
>I have not seen this specific case described.
>
> My printer is a Canon Pixma MP780.
>
> I have several XP Pro 32 bit systems, and one Vista Ultimate 64.
>
> File sharing works between any two machines, so no permission problems.
>
> The printer works locally on any machine, using the latest Canon drivers.
>
> Vista can not install the printer if it is on XP, saying no suitable
> drivers
> available.
> XP can not install the printer if it is on Vista, saying no suitable
> drivers
> available.
>
> I am getting tired of carrying this printer between systems - it is not a
> portable...
>
> The Canon Vista driver package does not include printer .inf files; I
> think
> it is built in to Vista.
>
> The Canon XP driver package does not satisfy the No appplicable Driver -
> on
> either XP or Vista.
>
> I do not have a partition available to install Vista 86 to grab drivers
> from
> there...
>
> I need more suggestions...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Robert

I had exactly the same problem with my Epson printer. It would print dierctly
from either the XP Pro or the Vista Ultimate, but kept getting the driver
problem no matter which I treid to network it from. I ended up connecting it
to my XP machine and downloading new 64 bit drivers from the Epson website
onto the Vista machine (even though it apparently already had drivers because
it printed directly...) Anyway, it worked and now I can print from either
computer without problems.
Tammy


"Robert" wrote:

> I have not seen this specific case described.
>
> My printer is a Canon Pixma MP780.
>
> I have several XP Pro 32 bit systems, and one Vista Ultimate 64.
>
> File sharing works between any two machines, so no permission problems.
>
> The printer works locally on any machine, using the latest Canon drivers.
>
> Vista can not install the printer if it is on XP, saying no suitable drivers
> available.
> XP can not install the printer if it is on Vista, saying no suitable drivers
> available.
>
> I am getting tired of carrying this printer between systems - it is not a
> portable...
>
> The Canon Vista driver package does not include printer .inf files; I think
> it is built in to Vista.
>
> The Canon XP driver package does not satisfy the No appplicable Driver - on
> either XP or Vista.
>
> I do not have a partition available to install Vista 86 to grab drivers from
> there...
>
> I need more suggestions...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Robert

Here is the official response I got from Canon:

>Dear Robert:

>Thank you for contacting Canon product support. We value you as a Canon
>customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We sincerely
>regret to hear that you are experiencing difficulty detecting your PIXMA
>MP780.

>Regrettably, the PIXMA MP780 can only be setup for printer sharing on a
>network where all of the computers are of the same operating system. It
>does not matter which operating system, as long as they are all the same
>and compatible with the PIXMA MP780.

>We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We hope this
>information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we can be of any
>further assistance with your PIXMA MP780.

>Thank you for choosing Canon.

This is demonstratably false - the printer works fine between 32 bit XP and
32 bit Vista. But it is Canon's position and they are sticking to it...

And they are not likely to repackage their drivers to fix it.

I will note I installed a 32 bit Vista system, installed the Canon printer,
and copied the entire FileRepository directory to a spot on my 64 bit Vista
system. Still no go - the ntprinter.inf directory would not satisfy the x86
architecture.

Robert