Can't print to shared printer

Hi,

I can't print to a shared printer in Vista Home Basic. All PC's in the network
are Vista, are set up correctly, have the same workgroup, have password
protected sharing turned off, etc.

I can see the printer on the network and can even double click on it, but when I
try printing to it, it just doesn't print! Only printing from the host PC works,
not from any network clients.

A simple google search tells me I'm certainly not alone. Wow, who would have
thought that such a simple thing like setting up a shared printer would be
causing so much trouble?

I've set up the share as a local port in the Add Printer dialog, and it still
doesn't work. I haven't yet set up the share as LPTn with "net use" - I plan to
try that next.

I've seen Drompa's post here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/23...-printer-vista
and a reference to it here
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...0-b34c5eac10c3
regarding setting file and share permissions on the spool folder.

I tried doing that, and it worked from an administrator account (as a matter of
fact, about 15 seconds after I exited the permissions dialog, the network job
started to print all by itself). But apparently it doesn't work from a standard
account. Unless I fiddle around with the permissions some more.

My question is this:

What is Microsoft's "official" stance on Drompa's post? Why should it be
necessary to manually set permissions on a network share? Doesn't a _network
share_ imply that the permissions are set up properly by the operating system?

I can't understand why something so simple on XP is such a royal pain on
Vista... and like I said, a simple Google search shows I'm not alone...

Anyone from Microsoft care to address this issue?

Hi
Did you installed the printer's drivers on the computer?
Jack (MS, MVP-Networking).

<mark@no.spam> wrote in message
news:am1ud5pkdsk7ucnqgsn7d3r8fatjmbo6kt@4ax.com...
> Hi,
>
> I can't print to a shared printer in Vista Home Basic. All PC's in the
> network
> are Vista, are set up correctly, have the same workgroup, have password
> protected sharing turned off, etc.
>
> I can see the printer on the network and can even double click on it, but
> when I
> try printing to it, it just doesn't print! Only printing from the host PC
> works,
> not from any network clients.
>
> A simple google search tells me I'm certainly not alone. Wow, who would
> have
> thought that such a simple thing like setting up a shared printer would be
> causing so much trouble?
>
> I've set up the share as a local port in the Add Printer dialog, and it
> still
> doesn't work. I haven't yet set up the share as LPTn with "net use" - I
> plan to
> try that next.
>
> I've seen Drompa's post here:
> http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/23...-printer-vista
> and a reference to it here
> http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...0-b34c5eac10c3
> regarding setting file and share permissions on the spool folder.
>
> I tried doing that, and it worked from an administrator account (as a
> matter of
> fact, about 15 seconds after I exited the permissions dialog, the network
> job
> started to print all by itself). But apparently it doesn't work from a
> standard
> account. Unless I fiddle around with the permissions some more.
>
> My question is this:
>
> What is Microsoft's "official" stance on Drompa's post? Why should it be
> necessary to manually set permissions on a network share? Doesn't a
> _network
> share_ imply that the permissions are set up properly by the operating
> system?
>
> I can't understand why something so simple on XP is such a royal pain on
> Vista... and like I said, a simple Google search shows I'm not alone...
>
> Anyone from Microsoft care to address this issue?
>