Problem sharing a printer between XP and Windows 2000

ITdad

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Jan 8, 2006
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Printer sharing problems seem to be rather popular (or unpopular really).

I have a printer connected to a PC running under Windows XP Professional and want to share it with another PC on our home network which is running under Windows 2000 Professional. I have turned on printer sharing on the XP machine and have instructed my firewall to allow communications with all of the IPs on our home network.

I can go to the 2000 machine and run the Add Printer wizard. It is able to see my XP machine and the shared printer that is attached to it. However, when I select the printer and click next on the menu at the bottom of the dialogue box, the process hangs.

Does anyone know why this might happen and how to remedy the problem?.

(And why is sharing printers so damn difficult anyway? This really should be a simple procedure.)

Followup: Was finally able to get the printer installed by going to "My Network Places," finding it there, and right-clicking to choose "Connect." I had to do that on another machine (running under XP Pro) on our network too. I have no idea why the wizard didn't work, but seems that either method of adding the printer should have worked.
 
It isn't difficult, it's usually just that easy...

Not sure why the computer would hang, but perhaps you could install the printer as if it were a local printer, then point it to the XP machine afterward?