Shared Printer not seen

Is the shared printer on your XP Pro machine?

Is it shared properly, so that the user account on the XP Home machine has rights to the printer?  Have you established a user account for the XP Home user on your XP Pro system?

Hello ShineOn,

The shared printer is on mine XP-Pro machine.
When I login to my son's PC using my administrative rights password,
I am able to see the printer as well as print to it without any problem.
I hope this is possible only if the XP home machine has rights on it.

I am not able to understand the last question (I presume it does).
I am of the view that once a printer is shared, it is shared to all the
users which log on to the other PC.  Pl. elaborate.

XP Pro has more sophisticated security for sharing than did older Microsoft OS-es.  If both machines are in the same workgroup, and you do not specify to share to "everyone" in your file or print sharing setup, then you have to set up an account on your XP Pro machine that matches the login and password that your son uses to access his machine, in order for the sharing to work.

If you go to your printer properties and select "sharing" there should be an option for things like share to everyone and require a password.  Making the printer sharing unsecured like that can be a risk if you are on an always-on Internet connection.

If you don't want to share to "everyone" and/or want to require a password, then it is best to set up a local user account on your XP that matches the local user on your son's XP Home, including a password if selected.  You then have to grant that user account rights to the shared printer.

This same concept will work for sharing data files. You can specify a folder to share with your son, that only you and your son have permissions for.  

This type of security is not perfect, but it's better than no security at all.  If that is not a concern to you, then you have to make sure that anything you set to shared, is set for access from anonymous users with no password; otherwise a login with an account local to your XP Pro machine will be expected.

That's why you can see it logging into your son's PC with your admin account but he can't when logging in as himself.

Hello ShineOn,

Thanks for enlightening me on the security aspects of XP pro.

As per your suggestion, I right clicked the printer and under properties->Shairing, I see
only two options (Do not Share this printer & Share this printer).  I have selected Share
this printer and have given a name to it.
The complete sequence which I have used it as follows:

(Start->Settings->Printer & Faxes->My printer(right click)->Properties->Shairing)

I do not see the option to share it to everyone and require a password.

I also checked under LAN properties for File & printer shairing.  I do not see it there also.
(Start->Settings->Network Connections->LAN_name->Right click->properties-> File & Network
Shairing for Microsoft Network)

Am I looking at the right place?

Bye the way, my son also has a user in my PC.

Hello ShineOn,

Just a point.  I see a check mark in "File & Network Shairing".
I also see Install & Uninstall highlighted but Properties grayed out.
Does it mean that File & Netwrok shairing is not installed?

If yes, then how I am able to share the printer using my admin account
on my son PC?

Please enlighten.

Has this problem been solved... is help still needed?

pan_kaj - sorry I haven't gotten back to you.

It looks to me like you have the sharing happening. Which PC has the printer, the XP Pro or the XP Home?

I am pleased to share with everybody that I could solve the problem.
Actually I  had to search for the host computer using my son login
and then I saw the printer available for printing. (I was earlier under
the impression that if I  as an admin user assign it, other users on the same
machine will also get access to it.)  Sometimes the answer to a problem is so simple that
u tend to ignore it and look for complex solution. This exectly had happened in
my case.

Thanks everybody for the help nevertheless.