# 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) ![](/ricky/images/blog/printer1.jpg) * Select "Add a new port" and choose "Local port" from the list ![](/ricky/images/blog/printer2.jpg) * Enter path to printer e.g. \computerprinter ![](/ricky/images/blog/printer3.jpg) (you can find the printer name from Printers in Windows XP - right click on the printer and choose sharing) © Ricky Moorhouse