Networking Two Computers Together?

[dmorgan89]

I'm trying to help out a friend. He has a dell computer with xp home and a labtop on xp also. He wants them both netoworked, but the main thing he wants is both of them to be able to use 1 printer. Can anyone explain how to do this. I've went to my network places and tried to create a network, but the screen pops up about the disks. I've tried the xp cd and it still won't work. help?

[tesco]

my router is also a print server so what i can do is plug my printer into the router (built in parallel port) then install the dlink print server software (manually takes a bit of work) then install my printer driver as if it was plugged into my puter. i can do this on all of them.


as for plugging it into one computer and sharing, install the printer as you rnomally would on the computer that is hosting the printer. then go into the printer properties, click the sharing tab, and go to enable sharing and give it a name.

now on the other computer(s) go to the printer folder and add printer. choose network printer and it will give u a list of printers u have on your network. :) then proceed to install as you would normally.

[dmorgan89]

so the computers don't have to talk to each other? my friend i think uses a hub and not a router. so we just hook this labtop up to the hub and add a printer to it. and it should work?

[tesco]

well, first u gotta get the computers networked. i didn't really read teh first post lol.

umm, are they windows xp? if they are it's really easy just run that network setup wizard. also make sure they each have a different computer name, but the same workgroup.

[lee551]

yeah. windows xp is very networking friendly :D

[bilko]

very ture, the disc has an option of additional features and you can setup a small network via that, it runs u through everything, wen ur pc restarts remember to take the cd out