Sharing a printer from XP to Vista

After quite a while of not being able to print from our laptop to the shared printer on our XP desktop, I finally got it working last night thanks to my Dad.

Here’s the instructions:

Make sure you can see the XP computer from Vista.

If you can’t:

  • make sure the workgroup is the same (as the defaults are different)

    In Vista, go to Computer, System Properties

  • make sure file and print sharing is allowed through the firewall - in our case we had to reset the firewall rules on our XP machine and re-add the ones we wanted for this to work:

    • Go into Control Panel, Network and Internet Connections, Windows Firewall

    • On the Advanced tab, click Restore Defaults

    • On the Exceptions tab, make sure that File and Print Sharing is ticked

Adding the printer:

  • Go to Control Panel, Printers

  • Select “Add a printer” from the bar at the top

  • Select “Local Printer” (yes I know it’s strange)

  • Select “Add a new port” and choose “Local port” from the list

  • Enter path to printer e.g. \computerprinter

(you can find the printer name from Printers in Windows XP - right click on the printer and choose sharing)