Vista and XP file and printer sharing... not working

Anna ms

Geek Trainee
Hi all,

I just got my new HP dv9500t laptop today, with Vista Home Premium, and I'm working to get it setup. I was able to get it to wirelessly access the Internet through my Linksys WRT54G router only after going in and disabling the firewall on the router. :-( But at least it can get to the Internet for now.

But I can't get it to see my existing desktop PC which is running XP SP2. I've done lots of searching on the net, and this sure does seem like a common problem, but there are so many issues and factors involved (from what I've read)... its enough to make my head spin.

Is it just me, or doesn't it seem like this is a very common scenario? People have a Windows XP Machine, and they buy a second machine that is Vista, and they want them to see each other and share a printer and so on... is it really this complicated? Jeez Microsoft... I often defend MSFT, but this is very frustrating!

Any help? Ideas on how to get these two machines talking to each other? I've turned off Windows firewall for now on the new Vista laptop. I've done ipconfig /all, and found that NetBIOS over TCP/IP is listed as disabled on the XP machine. I went into the Advanced TCP/IP Settings, on the WINS tab, and changed it from Default to Enable, but that doesn't seem to change anything. It is still coming up as Disabled in ipconfig. How can I get this enabled... and will that fix my problem and let these two computers talk to each other? Or is more involved? thanks in advance for your help!
 
this is for network printing

Step 1: click start, control panel, printer. click the add a printer button on the toolbar and then add a netowrk, wireless or bluetooth printer. make a note of the printer address in the second line (\\...\.....) dots are where your network and printer name goes.

Step2 click start, all programs, accesories, command prompt, type net use lpt1 (or whatever connection your using)
Code:
"\\..\..."/presistent:yes
and then press enter. the message, the command completed successfully should apear on teh next line.

step 3 return to the add printer wizard and press the back arrow and this time, select "add a local printer", accept the type of connction your using and click next.


hope this helps
 
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