Share Your Printer Over a Home Network Using Windows XP
Published: July 2, 2001
By Jerry Honeycutt, Windows XP Expert Zone Community Columnist
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Why do you want to build a home network?
If you answer: "Because I can," then you are a true technology enthusiast. Sadly, and until I discover a life of my own, this is the category that best describes me.
But there are practical reasons to network your home. You can share a high-speed Internet connection with your kids, see your photos, edit your documents, and listen to your favorite tunes anywhere in the house. In short, you may want to network your home for the same reasons that big businesses have networks: save money, share resources, and gain the freedom to work in any room that has a computer.
Somewhere in your top 10 reasons to set up a home network is sharing a printer. You don't have to buy a printer for every computer. Buy the best printer you can afford, install it on one of your computers, and everyone else can use it. Is your printer a bit noisy? Install it on a computer in an out-of-the-way place, and you don't have to listen to it anymore.
Besides, having a network printer at home is just cool. It's something that big businesses do and you can, too.
Plug and Print
Just like big business, you have to do a wee bit of planning. But you get off easy with a single decision: Where are you going to install your printer?
I'd suggest a central location that has a computer. I installed mine in my home office, since that's where I keep most of my computers. You might want to install it on a kitchen computer. Whatever you do, don't put it in your kids' rooms. You might never get to it. And don't put it anywhere that you expect privacy; otherwise, someone might startle you at the wrong time with a 20 page list of colorful jokes.
In the continuing saga of my home network, I bought an inexpensive printer to test with Windows XP. Once I decide where to put my new printer, installation was a snap. I plugged my new printer, a popular inkjet printer from that small garage startup, in to a computer running Windows XP, and the operating system automatically recognized it. Windows XP briefly displayed a balloon in the taskbar that said, "Found New Hardware," followed by the name of the printer. A full minute didn't pass between the time I plugged the printer in to the computer and the time I was printing. I didn't have to do jack in order to install the printer, and you'll have the same experience—it just works.
Share and Share Alike
After I installed my new printer on the computer, I wanted to use it from other computers. I even wanted to print from my laptop computer, sitting on the patio, connecting to the network with a wireless NIC. Before I could do that, I had to share the printer. Windows XP doesn't automatically share printers, which is a good thing when you don't want to share your toys.
To share the printer, I opened the Printers and Faxes folder on the computer that was connected to my printer.
To open the Printers and Faxes folder
| • | Click Start and then click Control Panel. |
| • | Click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Printers and Faxes. |
| • | In the Printers and Faxes folder, I clicked the printer's icon and, in the tasks pane, I clicked Share This Printer. |
| • | I opened the printer's Properties dialog box, and clicked on the Sharing tab. |
| • | I clicked Share Name, and then clicked OK. |
That's it—the printer was immediately available for other computers to use.
Now that I had a network printer, I was ready to connect to it and print from other computers on the network.
To connect to the printer
| • | I opened Control Panel, and clicked Printers and Other Hardware. |
| • | I clicked Add a Printer. |
| • | Instead of adding a local printer, though, I clicked Printer Connection and then browsed the network for the printer. |
The whole process took less than a minute before I was printing to the network printer as though it was connected to the computer.
Share your Stuff
I can't convey with words how liberating it feels to know that I can print a document from anywhere in the house, and I'm no longer chained to my desktop computer. You'd have to see the grin on my face to really get it.
 | I can print a document from anywhere in the house, and I'm no longer chained to my desktop computer. |  | |
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Sharing a printer is definitely cool. You'll take it for granted after a time, though. So how am I going to continue impressing you with Windows XP networking features? Easy. Next time, I'm going to show you how to share photos, music, and documents on your home network. This is the part where you start making chimp noises and grunting, "More power," like Tim Allen on Home Improvement.
Sharing files is what home networking is all about. Imagine this: Your kid is playing a game on the kitchen computer at the same time that you want to edit an important letter. Without a network, you'd have to scare him away and even threaten him within inches of his life. With a network, you use a different computer to edit the document on the kitchen computer.
This is the magic of file sharing in Windows XP.
Expert Zone Columnist Jerry Honeycutt is a writer, speaker, and technologist who has written over 25 books, including Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide (Microsoft Press, 2002). He frequently writes about customizing and deploying Windows XP.
