Make sure both devices are connected to the same network, the printer is on, and the desktop can successfully print to it.
- On the desktop, go into your Printers and Faxes section from the Start Menu or Control Panel. Right-click on your printer and select Sharing. It may ask you if you want to learn more but you can hit "Just enable sharing" and then hit the radio button to "Share this printer." You can pick a name for the printer if you wish, or just hit OK.
- On the laptop you'll need to connect to the desktop through Windows Networking. If you know the name of the computer you can just type "\\COMPUTERNAME" without quotes and put the computer's name after the two back-slashes. If you don't know the name you can go through the Networking and Sharing center to view your network.
- Once you are connected to your desktop you should see any folders or printers that have been shared. If your printer is the only thing you have shared then that's the only entry you should see. If you double click on the printer it should ask you if you want to connect to the printer, which should take some time. Once you see the Printer queue window pop up you have successfully connected to your router!
At this point the network printer will have been added to your laptop's list of available printers. When you go to print something just hit the drop-down box to select the printer connected to your desktop computer, and Windows will take care of the rest. Happy printing!
I have shared the drives on the vista desktop and laptop I still get and error the I need adminstrative right to open the folder except for public folders.
I will have to check on that I remember seeing that I think I did give permission but again I may not have. Thanks I will check and see. I know the network is working since I can get into the public folders and when I try the error message says that the folder is avaiable but I don't have permission and I'm the one trying to run this silly network.
I made the original post about trying to share folders other than public. What I was doing is right click on the folder then click on share which is in the list which I would assume most folks wanting to share would do. Well I found out that you are exactly right Kauryl. First you have to right click on the folder then select proprieties on that folder then select share or advance sharing to share. I guess when you right click on a folder and see that list which has share among them that share is just useless at least it doesn't do what I wanted. The right way is to right click on the folder then click on proprieties then select advance share or share then the folder is shared as Kauryl said above. I found this out after trying and clicking on anything and everything to get sharing to work then on day I clicked on proprieties and walla I saw advance sharing and sharing I had it.
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