You should be able to print to a printer connected to the USB port of another computer, regardless of whether the network is wired or wireless.  A network is a network is network.   What HP is saying is that there is no wireless network adapter on the printer so you cannot printer direclty by wireless.  I can only answer that part of your question because I have not seen Windows Vista (don't plan to until all early adopters get the bugs worked with Microsoft.  Still, the most common reason that users can't share a printer (or files) is that one or the other computer is running a firewall that is not configured to allow local network access.  I would start by temporarily disabling all firewalls on both computers.

 

Steve

ok go to the desktop and find the printer icon in control panel. highlight the name of the printer. right click it and choose sharing on it. then  find the ip address to the desktop. once u have the ip address of the desktop go to the laptop and do the following.
 
start then run type in
 
 
should look like this
  \\192.168.1.1
 
then hit the enter key. your printer icon and folders should show up
double click printer icon and install printer drivers on the laptop
 
goodluck