In the meantime, we are always looking to expand this blog and looking for more information/other bloggers to contribute. Please comment here, or by the contact form on the main site if you are interested: http://www.ntechcomm.com/contact-ntech-communications.html

Thank you.
Ryan McCormick

MY DISCLAIMER: This article is intended to be a guide on how to properly set up a networked printer. Before you proceed, please understand that I take no responsibility for any use, misuse, or errors caused by performing the steps outlined in this article.

The process of setting a computer up to share a printer is not usually a difficult task. I will go over a few steps on how to accomplish this task and you will be printing in no time! One important thing to know about using a shared printer however, is that the computer the printer is directly connected to for sharing MUST be turned on and LOGGED IN whenever you want to print from any other client printers.

Before you start, you should locate your printer driver disk, or download some updated drivers from your printer manufacturer’s website. You will need to install these on the client computer to connect to your printer on the last step.

NETWORKING
Before we begin setting a printer up to be shared, you need to make sure your two computers can communicate with each other. The menus and directories may slightly differ between XP and Vista, but this should work on both. STEP 1: You need to make sure your computers are on the same WORKGROUP. You can check this by right-clicking on My Computer or Computer (vista) and scrolling down to “Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings.” Generally, the workgroup will be WORKGROUP, or MSHOME – both computers MUST have the same workgroup displayed.

FILE AND PRINTER SHARING MUST BE ENABLED
If the shared printer is on a Windows XP computer, this is a simple config. Click on Start>Control Panel and go into your network connections. Right-click on the network connection you are using and click properties. You will see a bunch of checkboxes next to different listed items. You want to make sure the box for “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” is checked. For vista, you will get to your network connections by going Start>Control Panel>Network and Sharing Center – then click the “Manage Network Connections” link on the right.

SHARE YOUR PRINTER
On the print server computer, you want to go to your control panel and open your printers folder. Right click on your printer and select “sharing.” Set up the shared printer name, etc… click apply (if applicable) click save or ok. Now that your printer is shared, you need to connect to it from your other computer.

CONNECT TO YOUR PRINTER
First you need to find the computer name of the print server computer by right-clicking on my computer and scrolling down to “Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings.” Now, to connect to you”r printer from your client computer, pull up the RUN command line: Start>Run OR Hold Windows Key and Press R.

Now that your RUN command line is up, you want to type: “\\<name of print server>” without the quotes. You should either see a folder pop up with a folder inside that says printers, or you will receive an error. If you have an error, check your network and sharing settings, otherwise, double-click on the printers folder. Right-click on the printer you want to connect to and click “connect.” If all goes well, your client computer should have connected to your print server computer and it will generally ask you to install printer drivers for the printer you are connected too.

RECAP
Set your network settings, set up file and printer sharing, set up sharing on your printer, connect to your printer, install drivers, and print!

TROUBLESHOOTING CONNECTION PROBLEMS
If you have a firewall enabled on either the server or the host, it may interfere with your ability to connect. If you are experiencing connection problems, disable your firewall software on both the server and any client computers. For safety reasons, remove any internet connection before you take down your firewall guard.

E-Book Recommendation
If you would like to learn more about repairing your own computer, etc… Check out this e-book

I really have to give Wired Tree mega props for both the selection of hosting configurations and amazing customer service. We have been a customer for over a year now and have experienced nearly 100% up-time (the only downtime was planned maintenance that took place late at night and announced well in advance). Any questions submitted through their service ticket area received a first response or were resolved within 15 minutes! Wired Tree is simply unbeatable in the Managed VPS/Dedicated Server market.

When it comes to customer service and service offerings, Wired Tree gets two thumbs up as the best place on the web to rent a Managed VPS and/or Managed Dedicated Server.

Wired Tree
http://www.wiredtree.com
Location: Chicago, IL

The way to properly run privileged commands in the command line area is to start the command line interface in administrator mode. This can be done by clicking START>All Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt(Right-Click and Select “Run as Administrator”).

After running the command prompt as Administrator, all privileged commands will work.

As always, this post is to be used as a guide on how to properly use the command prompt interface in administrator mode. I take no responsibility for it’s use.

I would recommend that only someone with knowledge of installing windows and changing BIOS settings performs this fix. This is ment to be a guide, and I take zero responsibility for any errors that may arise.

To fix this problem, you need to boot to a bootable Windows XP installation or boot disk and do a repair on windows. This can be accomplished by placing the boot disk in the CDROM drive and rebooting the computer. Before the computer passes the setup screen, you need to enter the BIOS (generally by hitting f1 or f2 for setup) and change the disk boot order to boot to the CDROM drive first, Save Settings, exit the BIOS, and if needed reboot the computer by hitting ctrl-alt-delete. Doing this will force the machine boot to the CDROM drive (if you encounter the blue screen error again, the machine booted to the hard drive instead of the CDROM drive, check your bios boot settings and try again).

Once you have booted into the windows boot disk, you need to make the ‘R’ selection for Recovery. This selection will be on the first screen after the CDROM boot process has completed.

Once the selection has been made for the recovery console, it will look like a DOS-Type prompt. Type these commands:
chkdsk /p
the check disk process will run, once this process has completed, type this command:
fixboot
Select yes, by hitting Y

Once the boot has completed it should boot into windows. IMPORTANT: remember to change your BIOS boot settings back to normal. The boot settings should resemble something like this:

a:\ – floppy drive (if you have a floppy)
c:\ – hard disk drive
d:\ – cdrom drive

Once the BIOS settings have been properly set back to normal, save, exit and reboot. The computer should now boot back into Windows XP.

If you would like to learn more about fixing your own computer, check out this ebook.