Problem printing from Win 7 laptop to shared computer

[Gabriel]

I have a wired home network with three Win XP computers and an old HP720c printer, a Canon i960 printer and a Canon 9000Pro connected.

I can print from any computer to any printer on the network with no problem.

I recently added a Win 7 home laptop connected by a wireless router.

I can connect the printers to the laptop and print with no problem.

I reconnected the printers to the wired network and added the Canon 9000Pro to the laptop with no problems. I tried to add the Canon i960 to the laptop and get an error message that there is no driver found on the network to support it. There must be a driver since the laptop will print to the i960 when directly connected.

Canon does not offer a driver for this printer for Win 7 64 bit, but the printer works with the Microsoft supplied driver.

Is there a way to find the driver on the lap top and manually apply it?

I have gone through Microsoft help and Canon help and can’t find an answer. Any suggestions are welcome.

[jman98]

Your i960 dates from circa 2003. Expecting Canon to make a 64 bit Win 7 driver for it is not realistic.

[Gabriel]

No need to be your usual self jman. Both Canon and Microsoft say the printer is compatible. I'm trying to make it so on my network.

[Nelson37]

Just change the port on the locally installed printer to \\othercomputer\sharedprinter.

The problem is the computer actually attached to the printer does not have the Win 7 driver installed. The fact that the new laptop already has the driver Should solve this problem, but it doesn't.

Local install and port change has solved this problem many times for me.

[Gabriel]

Thanks, Nelson, I tried that but it didn't solve the problem. It looks like the problem is that Win 7 thinks the printer is Canon Inkjet i960 while Win XP thinks it is Canon i960. I found several references to this on the internet but knowing how to fix it is beyond my current limited abilities.

[p_l]

Try Nelson's suggestion again. It usually works. Here's another way of putting it:

1) Ensure Printer on XP machine is shared - let's assume it's called SHAREDPRINTER.

2) On the Network Browsing on your Windows 7 machine ensure you can "See" the Printer share.

Now on the Windows 7 machine do the following (doesn't matter if it's X-86 or x-64).

3) Control Panel==> add LOCAL (Yes LOCAL) printer. I know it's on a Network but hold your horses -- what we are actually doing is "faking" the Windows 7 machine into thinking it's running the printer.

4) Create NEW port==>Local port

5) Portname is \\XPMACHINE\SHAREDPRINTER

6) Now Windows 7 will load a driver and you'll be able to print on the XP machine.

[Gabriel]

Thanks p I and Nelson. I was setting the port up as a network port yesterday. When I did as you said everything worked. Thanks again.