BleepingComputer.com: Printed Documents From The Network Stick In The Queue

Hi all,

This should be an easy one, but I've been banging my head against it for a week. I'm hoping I've just been looking at it to closely and someone can take a look from a different perspective, smack me on the back of head, call me an idiot, and point to the obvious solution.

I'm trying to fix a home network for a client. It consists of one desktop computer, two laptops, and a printer. The desktop is attached to the router by a cable, and has the printer, which is shared, and the laptops are wireless. Everybody is running Windows XP Pro, and this is Lexmark Z45 inkjet.

The problem is with printing. It worked until about a week ago, but now when the laptops send a job to the printer, it just sticks in the queue with the status of printing. The desktop can print, so it doesn't seem to be the printer. The laptops can see the printer, they can connect to the printer, they can send jobs into the queue, but then they just sit there.

I've reinstalled the printer on the desktop and the laptops, I've downloaded new drivers, I've restarted the services, I've attached to the share using the computer name as well as just its IP address, I've made administrator accounts on the desktop using the same username and password as the laptops use, I've made a separate printer account on the desktop and connected using that, and they're in the same workgroup.

I'm working on the assumption that has something to do with share permissions, so if anyone has any suggestions I can try, or different approaches to consider, I would be grateful for any ideas.

Edit: Moved topic to the more appropriate forum. ~ Animal

This post has been edited by Shooter7: 08 January 2008 - 07:42 PM

I'm new here, so I apologize for the placing this in the wrong forum. Although, I put it under Windows XP because I believe that it not so much a networking issue than an OS share permission problem, since the laptops can connect, but just get hung up once they send the print job.

Have you made sure that the laptops are signed on to the computer that the printer is connected to? I have vista on two machines, that are networked, laptop is wireless and the desktop in plugged into my router. Printer is plugged into the desktop. Even though the networked printer is set as my default printer on the laptop, if I dont go to network connections and sign into the desktop the print jobs do this. if i cancel them, go sign in, and reprint, it works fine.