Introduction to basic networking, printer sharing:
A network in its most simple form is two
or more computers or devices wired or wirelessly connected together, also referred to as a
peer to peer network.
This article
will assume the user has a wired or wireless router controlling access to the internal
network using its
DHCP service and that the computers belong to a workgroup and not a business domain. Today’s home Wireless, DSL and CABLE networks
using a
DSL/Cable router
or modem very closely resemble larger business networks. The
router at its basic level can be responsible for handing out a unique
private IP address
to each computer and device using your internal wired or wireless network while
also providing a firewall to the internet. The
router
controls which ports
are open to the internet to allow access through the firewall and which computers
on the inside of your network those ports are allowed to access.
Printer or file sharing problems can easily
be avoided by insuring that each computer joining the network has the same workgroup
name, by default depending on the version,
Windows names this default workgroup name WORKGROUP for Windows XP, Vista and 7 Professional business
editions, and
HOME or MSHOME for the home editions.
To check your workgroup go to Start/Control
panel/System, click on the computer name tab.
Take notice of the full computer name, along with the workgroup name, you can decide to use the default name of WORKGROUP
or HOME, or you can change it to something that suits your network and as long as
all the computers needing to share
folders and printers are in the same workgroup, sharing is more easily accomplished.
There are several ways a printer or device can identify itself on the network, some of the common ways are :
1.The computer or device
private IP address.
This method works well with devices like copiers, network printers or computers
and servers having fixed/static IP
addresses, however most computers receive a dynamic address that can change.
2.The computer or device
name (Usually the name you assign it) is another
method of identification that doesn't change if the IP address changes and so makes
it reliable and is one of the easy methods of sharing. Only one unique computer
or device name is allowed on the same network.
3.The physical machine name or
MAC(Media Access Control) address is the
hardware device indentifier also another method of identification on networks that
doesn't change if the IP address changes and so makes it more reliable.
4.The workgroup name, computers belonging to the same workgroup can be made visible
to each other using My Network Places and several other methods but only the shared folders
and printers are accessible.
In the example below of a typical home or small business network only the computer
named Development has a printer directly attached to it. However the Staff computer
and the Wireless laptop also need to be able to print. Since the Development computer
already has the necessary printer drivers installed, during sharing the printer
drivers are automatically installed without having to use the installation CD on
each computer.
To share a USB or Parallel cabled printer:
When you decide to
share a printer that is connected to your own computer windows will prompt you and
make an exception in the
local firewall settings
on your computer to allow your printer to be shared and discovered on
the network. Only the printer you allow to be shared will be effected.
To share your connected printer with the rest of the network,
go to Start/Control panel/Printers and faxes. Right click on the printer you wish
to share which will
bring up a menu. Click on Sharing. If you don’t see sharing, look to the bottom
of the menu and click on properties and select
Sharing from the top menu. Click on share this printer. You can use the default
share name or give it a name. Once the printer is shared you will notice a small hand icon appear next
to the printer icon indicating that the printer is shared.
Next print out a test page by right clicking
on the printer again, this time selecting properties and selecting print test page. This will print
out a test page which will include detailed information about the printer including the computer name
it is attached to along with the printer name itself and other details.
There are several
ways to gain access to shared printers, there are direct methods
without having to poll the network and there are network discovery or browsing methods
when you don't have the name of the computer or printer you wish to print to on
the network.
Armed with the name of the computer and shared printer you can connect directly:
Go to the computer or laptop on the
network needing to connect to the shared printer. Go to Start/Control panel/Printers
and Faxes. Select add a printer, this brings up the add printer wizard, select next, select a network printer or
printer attached to another computer. The following wizard
appears. Select connect to this printer, in the name box type in
two back slashes followed by
the name of the computer on the test page followed by one back slash.
If the WORKGROUP was set up correctly, and the printer was shared windows
should find the computer name and you
should automatically see a drop down menu with the shared printer listed.
In
the above example the computer named development has a Cannon printer that is
available for sharing on the network.
Select the shared printer and click next, windows will then
prompt you before installing the printer driver automatically on your computer. It does this by copying the driver
from the computer the shared printer is connected to. Once the driver is installed the
computer or laptop should now be able to print to the shared printer without having to do an entire software install from disk.