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Following the simple steps on How to Share a Printer and you will be able to print on your printer from any computer on your home network. Setting up printer sharing is quick and easy if you follow steps that need to be completed on both the computer with the printer and the other computers on your home network.
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How to Share a Printer
This video from tinkernut.com walks you though sharing a printer between computer on your home network. It walks viewers through what settings need to be changed on on both the computer that has the printer attached to it and the other printers on your home network. Watch it carefully, follow the simple instructions and you will be able to print from any printer on your home network.
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Introduction
Setting up printer sharing on your home network should take less than 10 minutes. Before you begin make sure that:- The machine with the printer connected is turned on.
- The printer is turned on.
- The machine with the printer connected can print to the printer.
Step 1: Share the printer
- Go to the machine that the printer is connected to and open your printers and faxes folder. Depending on which version of Windows you are running, you can click the start button and either search for printers or navigate through the start menu. Do this by clicking either the Control Panel Option menu item and then clicking the Printers and Faxes to open the Printers and faxes folder.
- In the Printers and Faxes Folder, right click on the printer you want to share and select sharing from the pop up menu. When the sharing window opens, click the "Share this printer" check box.
- Write down the Share name of the printer in case you need it later and click the OK button at the bottom of the window.
- When the window closes, you should see a sharing icon on the printer you have chosen to share.
- While you have this folder open, verify that the printer status is Ready.
Step 2: Set up the other computers on the network to use the printer
Go to the another computer on your home network that you want to use as the shared printer.- Go to the printer and Faxes folder and click Add Printer.
- Click Next on the first page of the Add Printer Wizard.
- Select the "A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer" option on the Local or Network Printer page. Then click the Next button.
Step 3: Find the shared printer on your home network
The next page in the Add Printer Wizard is where you specify which computer the printer is connected to. Select "Browse for a printer" and click next. Find the printer in the shared printer section and select it and then click the Next buttonIf you can't select the printer, click the back button and select the Connect to this printer option. Enter the name of the computer the printer is connected to and the share name of the printer that you recorded in Step 1 into the name box in the following format: \\Computer Name\Share Name
You can enter either the computer name or IP address. Be sure to put two backslashes before the computer name and one before the share name.
Click Next and the printer should be automatically installed and appear in your Printers and Faxes folder with status of ready. Print a test page to verify that the printer is working correctly.
Optional Step 4: Finding your computer name or IP address
If you need to find your computer's name in step 3, follow these steps:- Click the Start Menu and choose Control Panel
- Choose Performance and Maintenance and then click the System icon
- Select the Computer Name tab and the name of your computer will be listed as the "Full computer name"
Another alternative is to use your computer's IP address. To find the IP address follow these steps. Do not enter the " around the commands when typing them in.
- Go to the Start menu select Run and type "cmd" in the dialog box
- A black window should open, when it does type "ipconfig" and press ENTER
- Look through the information that appears and find the IP address, it will look something like 192.168.0.104
