Network Mac + PC Printer

[Sweener88]

Hey,
I have a mac and my mom brother and sister all have pcs, we use a router of the internet and i was wondering, how can i set it up so i can use the printer that is connected directly to my moms pc? iv never created any network of anykind so links to picture guides would be most helpful! lol thanks guys!

 

[scanlanlee]

Hi- you could be in for some fun, first part is easy.
Go to you mums PC and 'share' the printer (BTW what is the model?)
to do this open the printers section in Control Panel, right click on the printer and select share.
That make the printer visable to the other computers including the mac, add the software driver for the specific printer (if not already installed on the Mac) and then add this to your printers on your mac

Should be as easy as that - however i never managed to get my old samsung laser to print via a windows machine and i did try!
In the end bought a print server and all the late nights and headaches went away.
I hope you have better luck.

 

[Aperture]

You might end up having to connect the printer to your mac and share it over Bonjour. Then just install the Bonjour client on the PCs. I never had much luck networking printers on windows.

 

[mkrishnan]

I've gotten printing off a Windows-shared printer to work, but you can certainly also install Bonjour on the Windows computer, keep the printer *there*, and use Bonjour to share it out. Just need to have Bonjour on all the Windows computers.

 

[Aperture]

^^

You can do that? I might have to try that out. Yeah, if that is an option, I can assure you that would be the easiest way.

Edit: After searching the forums, people said that Bonjour - Windows is only a Client and not a Server.

 

[mkrishnan]

I'm not so sure. This is what Apple says:

With Bonjour for Windows, you can easily network your Windows computer to an existing network or create instant networks of multiple devices without any additional network configuration.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bonjour/

Give it a try. I think the people in the threads you read are wrong -- although I could certainly be the one. Bonjour is ad-hoc. That's the whole point. So I don't see why they'd make it only able to latch on and not transmit.

 

[Aperture]

^^^

How does one share a printer over Bonjour in Windows? When I navigate to Start > All Programs > Bonjour.. All I see is "Printer Setup" which starts searching for printers automatically. How can I share printers/files from that computer?