Network printer offline

[Jobie8264]

Hello all,

I have a printer connected to my primary desktop computer at home which is running Windows 8.1. Printer is shared with my home network. The two other machines on my network are running Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Printer works fine on the 8.1 machine which it is directly connected to, however I cannot print on my other two machines. Printer shows as "offline" on both of them. This has been a recurring problem since sometimes the printer works fine (such as after removing it and adding it again in control panel), but randomly goes offline and will not print on the machines it is shared with. Internet searches are no help. Tried different things here and there but nothing seems to work permanently.

Any help would be greatly appreciated to finally get this resolved.

 

[hang-the-9]

That is not a network printer, you are sharing it off a computer. When it goes offline, look in the options for it and see if "use offline" is checked. If it is, uncheck it.

You may want to actually network the printer to solve this, since the issue is with the sharing computer not sharing it properly.

You can get a USB print server device and hook that up to the router and configure the printer for direct IP printing. That works a lot better than sharing it. You will no longer need to have the computer on to print from another one also.

 

[Jobie8264]

That is not a network printer, you are sharing it off a computer. When it goes offline, look in the options for it and see if "use offline" is checked. If it is, uncheck it.

You may want to actually network the printer to solve this, since the issue is with the sharing computer not sharing it properly.

You can get a USB print server device and hook that up to the router and configure the printer for direct IP printing. That works a lot better than sharing it. You will no longer need to have the computer on to print from another one also.

"Use offline" is not checked on my Windows 7 computer and the Vista computer does not even show that option.

The computer that it is shared from is always on and never sleeps (aside from it simply turning off the monitor). Is this a Windows 8.1 problem with it not being shared properly? And any recommended changes to fix it?

The print server device seems like a good option - just want to avoid buying more hardware if possible. Any recommendations on this such as wireless ones?

 

[hang-the-9]

I don't know of any specific issues with Windows 8.1 and print sharing, but the fact that it works when you remove and readd it points to it not working properly for whatever reason. Have you tried moving the pinter to another computer, sharing it from the Win 7 machine for example and see if the Vista and Win 8 one works with it.

For print server, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833139028