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Westez

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Win7 Home Premium and peer to peer network printing and upgrade to Win7 Pro?

Friend has a small peer to peer network, mostly XP, one Win7 Pro, and one Win7 Home Premium. Win7 Home Premium can't print to the shared printers, it can see the other pc's and shared folders.

Should the Win7 Home Premium pc be able to print to the shared printers?

The Win7 Pro pc can print to the shared printers.

I've read that with Win7 all the features are installed, they're just not enabled.  And that when you upgrade your enabling\unlocking the features for the version of the o/s your upgrading too.  

He has a UPS app that has all the ship to addresses of his clients.  If we upgrade to Win7 Pro would this app be affected?
We'll backup or make an image before we upgrade.
How does the upgrade process work?  Can we simply purchase the license online for the Win7 Pro version and then register it with MS?

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serverman2008
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Perfectly accurate steps above, but that's not needed just to print to a shared printer.... Most commonly it is an authentication/security issue.

The username and password you are using on the win7 hp box, add it as a user account on the machine in which you cannot print to,, and assign the proper rights to the user on the other box, and retest....

This is assuming you can at least ping the other machine....

What happens when you type \\otherpcname from the 7 hp box?
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jaramart

I have had no end of trouble with this too! LOL But i noticed that there are two options in the win7 network and sharing control panel. Particularly under homegroup. By default windows want to use shared printers that are in a homegroup only. but before you create a homegroup (if you have then click leave homegroup) there is an option that says something like do not use homegroup to mangage net work shares. you need to select that. Then do what was suggested above on the pc that contains the printer you can do two things. One is under the security section of the shared printer add the group "Everyone" and give them printing rights (caution this less secure and will give anyone connected to your network printer access) or create a user account that in currently being used on the Win 7 machine on the XP machine and give that user printing rights. Once you have logged on to the win 7 machine you should be able to print.

Or Alternativly Buy a USB to Ethernet Printer server around $100.00 and plug that into the router then to the printer then you have a network printer that can be used without the need of a the XP PC to be running to print.
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Thanks all, I'll be working on this later this afternoon. I've not touched it yet.  i did some reading on the Windows Anytime Upgrade, shared printers, troubleshooting shared printers, etc  last night.  

Serverman2008 thanks for the howtogeek link, I read that this morning.  Always cool to read a step by step article about the routine if you've not ran it before.
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The pc with the shared printer is Win7 Pro 32 bit, the pc with Win7 HP is 64 bit.  Is this a show stopper?  

32 bit pc can print to a shared printer attached to the 64 bit pc.  64 bit can't print to the shared printer attached to the 32 bit pc.

Johnb6767 - \\otherpcname from the 7 hp box, I can see the shared folders and printers.  I can add, modify, and delete folders and files on the 7 Pro box.  I don't see a way to add the 7 hp user acct to the 7 Pro box.  Both pc's are a member of the same workgroup "aka workgroup"  The location field only has the 7 Pro box listed, I can't navigate up to the workgroup level and see a list of user accts from the other pc's.  Actually they all have just one user acct with the same name "John" and John is a member of the Admin group on all the pc's.  

Jaramart - I see two network profiles, Network Discovery, File and Printer sharing, Public folder sharing is turned on, Passwork protected sharing is turned off.  On the 7 Pro box, I see a group labeled Everyone in the print server security tab, but I don't see that group listed in the Local Users and Group.  Puzzled by that one.  Would the USB to Ethernet Print server, overcome the 64 bit to 32 bit problem?  That is, if that's the real problem.

Serverman2008 - I downloaded the 64 bit driver on the 7 hp box, but the install routine stopped responding.   If I understand it correctly, When the 7 hp 64 bit box connects to the shared printer attached to the 32 bit 7 Pro box, it installs the 32 bit printer driver.  Check me if I'm wrong here.  


The printer is an HP OfficeJet 6000.  They have another 7 Pro 32 bit box, it has no problem printing to the shared printer.




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jaramart - thanks, he's attached a printer via usb to the 64 bit pc, he may just stick with that.  I'll email him your post and see if he want to give it go and get back you.  
I think also from memory once you have installed the printer and after you have shared it there is a link to click to install additional driver. Click it and install the 32 bit drivers. That way the host pc which is now the 64 bit pc will push both and the client will decide which one it wants
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Johnb6767 - the passwords are the same.

>>Click Start, and type "Print Management">Print Servers>Local>Drivers>Rt Click a driver and select >>"Add a Driver Package".....

>>THEN double click it from the Win7 Pro Box (from the HP box).....

This confuses me.  I understand to extract the drivers to the HP box. Then on the HP box fire off Print Management and Add a Driver Package, and then double click on which box, or both boxes. I'm thinking it's the HP box.  
Add the drivers to the HP7 box, and then once they are loaded, UNC to the 7Pro Box and double click the shared printer to install it.....
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Guys - thanks to all.  I've got enough to work with so I should be able to get it resolved.  Hope you all don't mind splitting the points.  I've learned something from all of you.