Arrrrgghh - I bought a new computer with this wonderful new operating system on it (yea right it's wonderful) and I can't get my printer to print. Every time I try to print an error message pops up on my husband's computer (and he is getting hostile because he's playing EQ and it's interferring with game play) In case you haven't guessed we are connected via a gateway router so we share the DSL line.

I have no idea how to tell this lousy OS that I want the printer to print on my machine I have it listed as the default on my computer (I'm guessing XP automatically installed the drivers because I never did and I can't from the driver disk I have since it only has W98 drivers on it).

I am not a happy camper.

Syd,

I get this from time to time with our shared printer.. is the printer connected directly to your pc or to hubbys and shared??

I deleted the printer from my box and reinstalled it and then no probs.. you DO need to know Where it is and make sure it is set up as a shared resource if it is on Hubbys

Hugs

Tig

Hi Tig

It's connected directly to my computer. I don't know why it's even bothering with hubby's computer - his is just a poor innocent in this

I have no idea what XP did - I'm guessing it automatically set it up as a shared printer - I sure never did anything. All I want to do it print something (now I don't dare because hubby may throw something at me if I screw his game up one more time).

I really hate bossy operating systems

Thing is I don't know enough about XP to check what it did. Took me three days just to figure out where to find the stuff.

OK,

do this...

go start/printers and faxes/ then it should come up with a box with Your printer in there. Check out the properties by right clicking on it and see if it is shared or looking for a network. If you use it as a standalone then select to make it just work from your pc.

You can fiddle with the options, just remember what it was set to as default (ie before you fiddled!!)

Hugs

Tig

Nope it said it wasn't shared so I deleted it and added it again and it booted hubby out of his game (he's cursing me right now) but at least I can print. I just guess I can't do it while he's online -

Did I mention that I hate bossy operating systems???

(**)syd

You could always try unplugging the net csble from your computer when you want to print.
That way his computer won't know what's going on with your printer.

Syd make sure that each computer has a distinct name. It is very important if the computers are on a network. After both are named unistall and than reinstall your printer. When you install your printer the wizard will ask for a path.

The path is \\Yourcomputername\Printer

Once it is installed than do what Trigger said.

Hi Kathy

They do have a distinct name (at least my hubsand's and mine does) because XP informed me that the name I chose already existed on the network and to choose another name

I didn't however set up a path. I'll go check that part out.

there is also an option to use a local printer so maybe setting yours up as local might be better than sharing it...

Tig

One thing you'll probably want to do regardless of whether or not you get the printing issue sorted out, and that is turn off sharing on the network (unless for some reason you and your husband need to share files across the network). Also, I'm guessing the thing that is popping up on his computer is the messenger service (VERY different from MSN messenger the chat program that everyone uses). The messenger that I'm talking about is a little tool that receives messages broadcast over a network from other microsoft OS'ed computers. It's not useful in any way on a home network.

Right click on the My Computer icon (either on the desktop or in the start menu) and then click on manage in the list that pops up. Be very careful in the screen you are now in. It's a management console for your computer and you can get at some very low-level stuff in here that you can't get at in other ways. (not meant to scare you!! It's safe to use this tool... just don't go changing things willy-nilly).

Find the Services and Applications section in this window on the left hand side and click the plus sign beside it so that it opens up and you can see the Services area. Click on Services and you'll see a list of all the services running on your machine on the right hand side.

Find Messenger in that list and double click it. On the screen that pops up, choose disabled in the Startup Type dropdown list. Then click stop and finally click ok. Close the computer management window.

Do this on both computers, and you won't get annoying random popups from the other computer on your home network.



a

ps. here's a link to a page at Microsoft that talks about this: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/communicate/stopspam.asp