Vista reports shared printer offline after rebooting

[Invinceble]

I have a Home network with ONE W98SE, TWO Win XP and TWO Vista computers. All are connected to a shared Printer. Where Windows 98 and XP computer access and print using the shared printer without any problem, Vista is driving me crazy. Both Vista systems can print until I reboot them. Once they are rebooted, they say “Printer is Offline”. Note, still my other XP and Win98 can print flawlessly.

So every time after restarting the Vista computers, I need to delete my printer and recreate to make them work. What is wrong with this new operating system? Any idea? Is there any permanent fix for the same? Please help.

[Maee]

I had this problem earlier with my Vista. It also use to say Printer is Offline every now and then, no matter I reboot or not, it prints in this minute and gives error in the next minute. Anyways, I found the fix for the same. Hope it will help you too. Just follow this procedure:

• In Control Panel, Printers, delete offline printers. If they won’t delete, it may be because there are pending print jobs in the queue. Open the printer and Cancel the jobs.
• In Printer properties, Ports tab, delete the previously installed printers (offline status) that appear as Client Side Rendering Provider under the Description column. To do this, highlight the port, and then click on Delete Port button. Click Apply.
• Restart your PC. Now reinstall the printers as follows:
• Open Control panel, Printers, and click Add a printer.
• Click Add a local printer. Select the "Use an existing port" radio button, and select LPT1: (Printer Port). Click Next.
• Install the printer driver. Mine were found in the list included with Vista. Select the manufacturer and the printer. Click Next.
• In the next window, accept the printer name or type in a new name. Leave the "Set as default printer" box unchecked. Click Next.
• Vista should now install the printer. A window should open saying "You've successfully added printer name.
• DO NOT Print a test page at this time, because nothing is connected to the LPT1 port on the laptop. Just press Finish. The printer you just added should appear in the Printers window.
• Click ONCE on the newly added printer to highlight it, then right-click and open Properties.
• On the Ports tab, click Add Port, select Local Port, then click New Port
• When the Port Name window open, Enter a port name as follows:
• \\computername\printername (replace computername with the name of your PC acting as print server, and printername with the name of your printer). Click OK.
• You should now have a new port listed on the Ports tab of the printer Properties, but now the Description should be Local Port, instead of Client Side Rendering Provider. Click OK.
• Now you can go to the General tab, and Print a Test Page.

That’s it. Now restart the computer again. Hopefully you will not face the earlier problem.

[captcha]

Thanks for the guide, works fine for me too.

[fc1]

My laptop don't have LPT1 port, so I just tried the following workaround on Windows 7. It may or may not work. When adding printer, instead of selection "network printer", select "local printer". Then select the printer IP address as a port on the computer.