Printer won't work from laptop wireless connection

Question

Inspiron 1705/ Intel PRO wireless/ Linksys WRT54G @54mps w/excellent connection. Desktop is Dell Dimension 8200. Both w/ XP home ed. Printer is Epson 3200CX and is recognized by plug and play and set-up as default printer and shared on both machines. Ran install home network wiz- Internet connection is fine- printer won't work unless plugged into USB on desktop, not as remote. Thanx for any new ideas.

esquire · Answer

Can you explain a bit more on 'printer won't work unless plugged into USB on desktop, not as remote'?   Is the printer shared to the network from the desktop connected to the USB port?

esquire · Answer

Don't worry.  That's just my signature.     Have you configured your firewall or security application to allow File and Printer Sharing?  You may need to do this manually - network wizard is pretty lame.   Example with Windows Firewall:

esquire · Answer

By the way, you will also need to add the printer again as a network printer:  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/honeycutt_july2.mspx

libz9 · Answer

Yes, the printer is shared to the desktop-based network.The printer is connected by a USB cable to that desktop. I ran the network wizard on both desktop and laptop. The printer will work correctly with the desktop at all times.The printer will only work with the laptop if a USB cable is used to connect the laptop to the printer directly. It will not print on command if not connected directly ie; wireless. I hope that explains the situation more clearly. Thanx.

PS; I hope that hitting the reply button goes to the group and not to you.

libz9 · Answer

Current status: 1) Yes, the firewalls are configured for file sharing and local traffic- I even turned the firewall off to see if it made a difference( no, it didn't) 2) I followed the prescribed article's routine by the numbers and it made no difference, either. I also re-ran the network wizard and add a printer wizard to no avail. I noticed that the printer on the laptop icon in the control panel said 'print offline' but not 'ready'. I changed the options to 'print online' , but that made no difference either. The printers and the network are named the same, per the wizard, and it is listed as the default printer on both comp's. Any ideas?

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Was this post helpful?