XP to 2000 shared printer problem

Ok, I really haven't dealt with XP at all yet, so yesterday, I ran into a bit of a problem that I couldn't solve. I was installing a new computer for a friend (XP) and setting up a small home network. He has an existing Win2K box that has a USB printer on it. It seems on XP you cannot use the administrator username, so I made one called user and gave it admin privs. Then I go to the 2K box and create the same user. set IT as admin.

OK, so heres the problem. I can see the printer from the XP box over the network, but after I add it (it's successful) I cannot print to it at all. I hit print, and it gets to 4 bytes and sits there making me look rather foolish. Am I missing something? Does file/printer sharing work differently in XP than it has in everything else? Or am I just a dolt that missed something stupid?

I've got the administrator account on my laptop and that's running XP Pro. I don't think there is any difference in XP Home that affects you having an account named administrator? Also printer sharing works fine for me

Have you updated the printer drivers in XP and 2K? I've had loads of bizarre problems before because the drivers were a few revisions old and kept hitting bugs. In the end I got tired of having to power on my desktop every time I wanted to print so I bought an ethernet print server instead.

Anything in the event viewer about dud devices or errors?

Sorry, it's not very helpful as it's another "Works fine for me" occasion but I can't think of anything obvious you've missed.

Well, the only true oddity is that when you look at the printer, even after adding it as \\compname\sharename it grabs the drivers properly, installs them, and then tells me it's trying to print to USB on the XP machine. No way to find the network share again, or even add a new port.

Is it using the drivers built into XP or actually downloading them from the 2K machine?
If they're the 2K drivers then they might not work properly on XP.

Grr... I wish I paid more attention. I'm not sure. I'll check it out tomorrow night to see if that's the case. It was already on my list to download the latest drivers.

Try turning off the Simple file sharing in Windows XP. To do so, open any Explorer window, go to Tools, Folder Options, then Advanced. Should be the last option on the list.

MS tried to make file sharing just as easy as it was in 98, but it tends not to mix well with true NT filesharing like what the 2000 machine is using. I believe this affects printers as well.

Ahhhh.... now THIS sounds more like the problem.

It shouldn't say it's trying to print to USB. XP definately does know how to do network printing. Unless your drivers are bizarre and fudge it by saying it's using USB?

By the way, anybody not getting emails from the BBS anymore? I've had replies to my posts and I don't get the usual email.

IIRC, you can't turn off simple file sharing in XP home, only in XP pro. dunno which version lectric is using, but you may be stuck with it.

--dan.

IIRC, you can't turn off simple file sharing in XP home

Now that sounds like a security hole just waiting to be exploited!

By the way, anybody not getting emails from the BBS anymore? I've had replies to my posts and I don't get the usual email.

Umm...

/me runs off to check the server

-edit apt-get install postfix has been run. Mail should be working again.

Well fruck. Of course he ordered XP home. So it looks like I'm back to trying to download later drivers and hope they work. Thanks for all the input guys.

Update, It is now sending 3 documents for every document I send to the printer. They sit in the print queue as "remote downlevel documents." The lst 2 you can delete. The first you cannot. It just sits there saying deleting.

Now, to make it really weird, if I reboot the soft (200) computer, on reboot the documents print as if nothing were wrong. But if I send a document AFTER it's booted, it just sits there in the queue. I'm sumped.

HELP?!?!

New Update... The user I created to match the user on XP has to be set as admin on the computer sharing the printer. Power user is NOT sufficient. Weird. Now if I can just figure out why....

By the way, it's now working since I changed permissions.