Accessing shared XP printers from Win98

[paleogryph]

Setup an HP LJ 5550 on an XP Pro pc. Pc is in a workgroup. When try to add that printer on any 98 pc via browsing for network printers, it sees that pc then asks for a password.

Setup of the shared printer on the XP pc never required a password. Tried enabling guest account, same deal.

Any ideas?


>Think for yourself<
...or someone else will do it for you.

 

[kiddpete]

Don't try to add it to the 98 PC. If it is a shared printer, and the 98 PC sees it, it will be included in the list of available printers when an application is ready to print. Word, for example, will include it on the list of available printers.

 

[paleogryph]

Let me elaborate on what is setup and what I've tried.

1. Shared the USB HP LJ 5550 on an XP Pro pc and &quot;Everyone&quot; has rights to it.

2. XP pc DOES NOT have ICF enabled, never did...

3. XP pc is in same workgroup as 98 pc.

4. XP pc can see its own shared printer (you would expect that...) via &quot;net view \\machinename&quot;.

5. On 98 pc add a network printer, however when browse to the XP &quot;shared&quot; printer wants a user/pw, nothing worked here so I added the user from the 98 pc and made the pw blank. Still nogo. Oh, and yes, guest account is enabled.

6. Net view \\machinename from the 98 pc gets &quot;error 55: specified resource does not exist on the network&quot;.

7. Just for fun enabled the &quot;tcp/ip print server&quot; on the XP pc, same results.

Anybody got any ideas here?

thanks!


>Think for yourself<
...or someone else will do it for you.

 

[bcastner]

You are in a workgroup setting. Either enable the Guest account on the XP machine, and give Guest permissions to the printer resources; or, add all the usernames and passwords from Computer A to computer B as local users with passwords, throughout the workgroup.

 

[paleogryph]

Ok, in conjunction with enabling the guest account, below are the steps I took to get this to work:

1. ran the network setup wizard on the xp pc. It will ask you how to connect to the network, what workgroup to join, etc; It will tell you to run the network setup app on any other (especially non-xp pc’s) pc that is going to connect to this pc’s shares. You can choose to make a network setup disk (which is what I did) or use the xp cd or do nothing. Once this is completed “net view” sees all the shared printers. By running this network setup wizard, xp automatically shares all local printers (including the pdfwriter and adobe distiller printers) and the shared documents folder.

2. Ran the network setup disk on the 98 pc by running a:\netsetup.exe. It copies some files and then asks to restart. Restart and it comes up with its network setup dialog boxes, asking which workgroup, etc;. Then wants to restart again. A side note here: after this restart, one of my drive mappings got hosed and the hourglass would flash every two seconds or so, restarting again didn't fix it. Restarted safe mode, then normally, now can see all the shared pdf printers but not the hp lj 5550. Strange. Same with net view and in network neighborhood. Why would it add the pdf printers but not the hp?

3. Renamed the hp printer from “hp laserjet 5550 series” to “hp”. Ran the network setup wizard again on both xp and 98 pcs, restarted both, now it worked. Was able to see the “hp” printer in both network neighborhood and with “net view”. Was able to add a network printer on the 98 pc using the path \\print-cad\hp and it installed the drivers and test print worked.

Another side note: When accessing this shared printer from an xp pc, when it asks for the user and password, make sure you check &quot;remember my password&quot;.


>Think for yourself<
...or someone else will do it for you.

 

[bcastner]

Win98 will not accept sharename > 12 characters.

 

[khushi2b]

I've had the exact same problem. Here is what worked for me...

I'm going to assume that you have enabled sharing and are sharing the printer on XP and have given it a share name.

When you install the printer on 98 do a network printer and just use the server and the share name
ie.

//server/sharename

in your case, it will be //whatever is the name of your xp computer/sharename of printer