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(I hope this is the appropriate place to post this question.) At home, I've got 6 Windows machines (a mixture of Windows 7 and Vista) connected in a simple peer-to-peer network. A workgroup, in Windows' terms. We've got a network printer, an HP OfficeJet Pro L7555 printer, which is shared out via our router. So, no Windows machine is sharing it out. For some reason the only machine which can reliably print to that printer is mine, which is running Windows 7 Ulitmate. None of the other PCs seem able to find the printer, or they all see it as being "off line" or something like that. Mine machine is the only Windows 7 Ultimate machine, the others are either Windows 7 Home Premium or Vista Home Premium machines, however I doubt that has anything to do with it.

Why is it that the other machines can't find that printer or print to it, even though it's being shared out by our router? Our router is a Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band gigabit router WNDR3700.

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2 Answers

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I remember an issue with sharing printers when Win7 first came out, that if you had disabled Windows Firewall (to use another) there were issues with sharing the printers. Is this the case? If you have killed the service, just solve it by turning service on install the shared printers, and turn it off again.

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It is true that I've disabled the Windows Firewall, because I have another one. But I'm not sharing the printer out from Windows. It's being shared by the Netgear router. – Rod Feb 11 '11 at 1:24
This was my issue at the clients. The WIN 7 machine had the firewall service turned off, and I couldn't connect to shared drives or printers. Its worth the try. – DaBaer Feb 11 '11 at 2:26
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@ Rod when you try to add the printer, do you get to see the ip address of the printer?

Start > Devices & Printers > Add a printer > Add a network printer > ?

If you don't see printer's ip then, you could try the following:

  1. In "Devices and Printers" click "Add a Printer."
  2. Select "Add a local printer."
  3. Select "Create a new Port" and use "Local Port" as the Type.
  4. Enter the Network Path to the Printer (ie. \ComputerName\SharedPrinterName) as the Port Name.
  5. Choose the printer from the list.
  6. Choose whether you want to use the driver that is currently installed or replace it.
  7. Name the printer.
  8. Choose whether to share the printer or not.
  9. Choose whether to set the printer as the default printer or not.

Original thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itpronetworking/thread/b378c7a7-c66d-4812-ae54-59d138fe5c5c

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