How do I share a printer across a LAN in my house?
Asked by
Fred931 (
9434
)
August 23rd, 2009
The computer that is directly connected to the printer runs Windows XP Media Center Edition. The printer itself is a Canon Pixma MP600. Of the other two computers that will need to be connected, one is running Windows XP Home, and the other is a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.
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11 Answers
do the computers in the lan already “talk” to each other ?
start>control panel>printers and faxes>right click on the printer> sharing…>check “share this printer>apply.
make sure that you install the appropriate drivers on your macbook.
im not familiar with macs, so i don’t know if they can even see xp machines on the network.
@Fred931
the computers should be in the same subnet and workgroup
is the lan set up and you just need to get the printers going, or is the lan not set up yet and you need to start from the beginning?
The LAN has been set up and working perfectly for 2 years now.
Raginloli has your answer then
Not if she wants the printer to be assigned its own address on the lan, and not to share it from a computer. Does it have a network card? You need to check the printer manual as to how to set it up. Mine has a 10/100 port and I had to do some fooling around with a software setup routine, but now I print directly to the printer on the lan from any and every other computer.
AND THE WINNER IS:
Ragingloli, because it worked fine. Except for the fact that the MacBook has saved drivers for EVERY OTHER CANON PIXMA MP SERIES PRINTER ON THE MARKET… Now all the printed pictures are incorrect, plus whenever i download a driver online, it just mysteriously vanishes. I don’t get it.
You need to go on your windows machine and set up a network. Go to control panel > network connections, and you should see an network set up wizard. You name the computer and the network. Now make sure the printer works fine with that machine. Go over to the mac and you should see a “shared” column in the finder with the name of the windows machine listed under it. Now you know your mac sees the windows network. Now open up system preferences > printers and then search for that network printer. It should let you print once you add it.
Hope that helps :)
If you don’t want to have a PC running in order to share a printer, you can get a print server. You can buy them as separate devices, but also several home switches or routers have an integrated print server.
You don’t have to have a PC running then.
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