Vista Printing and Print Server on Router

Here is my issue:

Using Vista Home basic, I can not get the pc to print to a print server
printer. The data seems to spool and then just sits there, nothing ever
happens, no print, etc.

C88 Epson, using Vista driver for it.

I have a USR wire/wireless router with a built in print server (printer
connects to a USB port on it). Model of router is USR 5461.

Funny enough, this printer work great with W98 and XP on multiple computers!
This PC is a notebook using wireless to connect to the house network. I had
XP on it and it worked fine. Only reinstalling Vista, I can't get the printer
to print!

I even tried setting rules for Windows firewall to allow the specific
address. I know the address I was using was correct, as it works on many
other non-vista PC's.

Anyone have luck using the print server on the USR router?

Any help? Do I need to supply more info?

thx...Jeff

I have the exact same problem. USR5461 router, Canon ip3000 printer, works
with XP, not with Vista. Just thought I would let you know you're not alone.

Good to know, I guess....now if we or someone can figure out why!! I can't go
backwards with a new OS !!

I've been checking other forums. The problem is widespread and no one has
offered a solution.

This probably won't solve your problem, but it will at least let you know
what's probably going on here.

Typically these print server boxes are running some flavor of unix, of which
there are zillions. I can find no documentation on USR's website talking
about what they are running on these boxes. If that flavor of *nix supports
Samba, Vista printing should work with them (this is why Vista will work
with a printer shared from a Mac). However, if they do something else, you
may experience problems.

This is a long shot, but you might be able to try connecting to the printer
with a MASQ connection. In the Add Printer wizard, type in the connection
name of "http://[router ip address]/printers/My_Printer/.printer". If that
doesn't work, you'll have to wait for USR to do something to support the
device on Vista.

Thanks....but isn't that a bit BACKWARDS Dan?

Really - you (MS) push a new OS and it can't do what XP did! Since XP worked
fine, I'd think MS should be fixing Vista.

Sorry I sound so negative, but I doubt USR will update an older product just
for Vista. I will have to revert back to XP and could NEVER update to Vista
till this issue is fixed.

Thank you for responding though. Please take this feedback back with you to
the campus.

for me this one worked:

1) follow installation guidelines provided by USR (will end up with
a dummy printer > VISTA won't connect with)

2) add another printer but, this time select "add local printer"

3) select internet port and assign adress created during step 1)

4) finally set to standard printer. that's all!;)

is this the problem.

you have to assign printserver-adress to internet port
however - different to xp - vista x64 doesn't allow for that

to workaround add a network printer first and assign the full network
path (... /printers/My_Printer)

next add another, local printer and forward it to internet port. Vista
to this port then will automatically add the network path created during
previous step.

please note there might occur error messages. simply click away.

:party:

Although the USR 5461 is an old router, it does work well. and I just
experienced the same problem with a new computer running Windows Vista
Home Basic 32.

The best bet is to first install printer drivers suited to Windows
Vista. In my case for a brother HL-2040.

The next steps I used are the following. Make the following changes to
the registry
'Error message when you try to install a network printer on a Windows
Vista-based computer: "Windows cannot connect to the printer
Operation could not be completed (error 0x0000000d)"'
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947236)

After that procedure, go to settings-Printers, and select add a
printer. Then select add a network printer. Click on printer wasn't
listed, go to next screen, select "select a shared printer by name".
Select the BROWSE button. Next screen, Go to the upper menu and find
Network Location, pull down, and select your router name and check the
box. At the bottom of this screen enter:
http://192.168.2.1:1631/printers/My_Printer
Hit the select button. The computer should find the network location at
this stage. A prompt will appear asking to identify the printer. (Pick
in my case Brother HL-2040 series). You will be prompted to print a test
page and then click the finish tab. (I assume here that the page
printed)

The printer may not appear immediately in the printer window. and you
may have to reboot to see the icon. You will however, immediately be
able to print immediately from the print pull down menu in any
application. The printer will appear as a networked icon in the printer
display window. and it will be labeled "My Printer on http...etc" in the
pull down print menus. Hope this helps. I spent a few hours on this
today trying to install with no luck until I used this approach.

I know this is an old thread but as I have seen many similar posts on
many forums I wanted to add my 2 cents. TheTallMan's post was very
helpful for setting up my print server. Although it did not work at
first I believe it was because I was being IT lazy at the time. Do not
cut and paste the printer information from the router device page, type
it manually. On the next two setups I found Norton was causing problems
and when I removed it the installs worked fine.

For anyone who is leary about editing the registry there is another
solution. Enable the "Allow access to the print server from the
Internet" and use that address. That was the first workaround I used
before I found the above post.