Common Problem with Networking Printers
Quite recently a few people have asked how to fix a problem which seems to occur without warning relating to sharing a printer via a networked PC / Laptop. Many have found that after setting the properties to share a printer on a PC / Laptop (hard wired to a printer), when they try to connect to it from a seperate machine the following error message appears: “Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server.”
This is a common problem and an easy way to fix it is:
Note: This method will only work with Printers been shared via another computer – if your printer is a “network” printer – with its own ip address – then the procedure below will not work.
- Install the printer driver onto the machine you are getting the error on. (You may at some point need to use a USB lead to connect to the printer during this install process.)
- Once the driver is installed, click START > CONTROL PANEL > PRINTERS & FAXES.
- Right click on the printer you want to connect to over the network and select PROPERTIES from the list.
- Select the PORTS tab from the window which will appear
- Click on the ADD PORT button (Leave default setting of LOCAL PORT set)
- Click NEW PORT
- In the window which appears type in the location of the printer using the following syntax: \\192.168…\nameofprinter (as an example, if your printers name is ‘netPrinter’ hard wired to a PC with the ip address of ‘192.168.1.2’ then you would type in the following \\192.168.1.2\netPrinter
- Click CLOSE and then close the Printer Properties window.
- Your computer should now be connected to printer over the network.
Hope this helps someone.