Win 7 (X64) machine can't access printer on Vista (X86) machine over wireless router

Hi everyone,

New guy here. Just purchased an HP laptop with Windows 7 - 64 bit. Also have an HP desktop running Vista home premium 32 bit and a Toshiba laptop running Vista home premium 32 bit. The router is Netgear WGR614v7. I am trying to share a Canon printer that is connected (USB) to the Vista desktop. The printer and file share between the Toshiba laptop works fine with the Vista desktop.

The Win 7 laptop has internet access over the network so this part is good. However, I cannot connect to the printer connected to the Vista desktop machine. I was able to install the 64 bit drivers on the Win 7 laptop by disconnecting the USB from the Vista desktop and re-connecting the USB to the Win7 laptop. It found and installed the drivers immediately. Now I can see the printer in 'devices and printers' on the Win 7 laptop but it is grayed out. Of course, when I reconnect the USB to the Vista desktop I cannot print from the Win 7 laptop.

So I tried to open a new port to the Vista desktop printer. However, I get an error message: "logon failure: unknown user name or bad password". Earlier in the process (before I installed the 64 bit drivers) I could not see the printer unless I double clicked the Vista desktop machine icon from the network screen on the Win 7 machine. However, when I double clicked I would get the same error message: "logon failure: unknown user name or bad password". I clicked the "remember my credentials" checkbox but everytime I boot the Win 7 laptop I would get the same error.

It seems odd that the Win 7 machine would be repeatedly asking for this info from a private (home) network. Again, everything works great between the Toshiba (Vista 32 bit) and the Vista desktop. Both the laptop and printer manufacturers have given me up for dead so I will have to figure this out the hard way.

Should I just trash the existing network and start all over??

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Jeff

No, don't trash anything, believe it or not you're having better luck then most, at least you can see it. First try this when prompted, if you see an option to choose other user or something like that choose that if not or in either case try using this format machinename\username and then the password, that is
TheVistaDestopMachineName\UsernameThatWorksOnTheVistaDesktop and then the password for that user. Alternately you can try adding the username and password you are using on the Win7 machine to the user accounts on the Vista Desktop. There seems to be some issues with missing passwords on some home networks, if you are not using passwords you may have to take that leap or perhaps turn of password protected sharing

Thanks for the reply. Made some progress by using the same password on the Win7 and Vista desktop machines (previously I had same user name on both machines but different passwords). I no longer get prompted for user name and password when i double click the Vista desktop icon from the Win 7 network screen.

I was also able to create a port from the Win7 machine to the Vista desktop machine. When I go to devices and printers on the Win7 machine I can see the printer (it is greyed out). However, printer status is still 'offline'. When I right click the printer and select 'connect' the Win7 machine runs off and tries to find drivers (which of course it does not find). The odd thing is that the drivers were already installed when I connected the USB directly to the Win7 laptop.

The only thing I can think of doing is to delete the printer on the Win7 machine and re-install it with the USB connected to the Win7 machine. Is there anything else I can try?

Thanks again for your comments!

Yes you need to download the 64bit drivers for the Canon Printer to a local folder on the Win7 Machine, then when prompted direct the process to the folder that contains the driver. Typically you would, on the Win 7 machine, add printer, add local printer, create new port, local port, enter port name (\\VistaMachineName\ShareNameOfPrinter ) then you should get the choose your printer screen, look carefully at the available drivers and see if there is one available for your canon, if not choose have disk and point it at the 64 bit driver folder that you downloaded, I would think that if you have had the printer installed on the Win 7 machine that it should have the drivers already in the list, if you don't see it in the alphabetical listing try scrolling all the way to the bottom.

I think we are getting close! I (account administrator) was able to install the printer and print from the Win7 machine. Cool!

Now, if I could just get other users to be able to print from the Win7 machine. I tried printing from WordPad and Firefox (as another user - not from my account). With Wordpad I didn't see the Canon printer so I clicked find printer - it found the Canon printer but when I tried to print I got an error as follows:

Windows cannot connect to printer - operation could not be completed:

0x00000002 (error code)

Hey, thanks a million for your help!!!

Barbarian

Yes, try adding the other user's account and password to the Machine that's hosting the printer and see if that works.

The user names are identical on both machines (account is not password protected). As a sidebar, I originally set up this user on the Win7 machine with a different account name. To work around the issue of this user not being able to print from Win7 machine, I changed the account name of this user to match the user account name on the Vista host machine.

Perhaps I should just delete that users account on the Win7 machine and create a new account with the same name as the account on the Vista machine. Does this sound reasonable?

Thanks & regards

That is certainly an option, it still seems that perhaps on the Vista Machine the Printer Share is not exactly right, check the properties under the security tab and make sure that "Everyone" has print permissions.

Just for grins I logged onto my wifes account - from WordPad I could see that the printer installed. When I tried to print I got a 'print error' message on the printer queue screen and nothing printed.

As you suggested i went to printer/properties/security and found that the print allow checkbox WAS checked for user 'everyone' on both the Vista and Win7 machines.

Scratching my head here . . .

Originally Posted by barbarian

Just for grins I logged onto my wifes account - from WordPad I could see that the printer installed. When I tried to print I got a 'print error' message on the printer queue screen and nothing printed.

As you suggested i went to printer/properties/security and found that the print allow checkbox WAS checked for user 'everyone' on both the Vista and Win7 machines.

Scratching my head here . . .

I'm a little confused by the next to last statement, the last one I can understand, but I didn't know that the Win7 machine had an attached printer and was sharing it also.
Not having an actual Vista machine up and running right now, I will just assume that perhaps it is somewhat less than forgiving when it comes to non password protected user accounts. So for the sake of this excercise and both our sanity, for now lets make sure that on the other machines, specifically the Win7 machines that is going after the printer share on the Vista machine, and even more specifically your wife's username has a password and that that username, complete with password exists on the Vista machine that is sharing the printer. This should work, if not let me know, and also let me know about the Win 7 printer share?