I have a windows 7 desktop with 2 printers attached and 2 laptop pcs. One laptop has windows 7 and the other has Vista. The Win 7 laptop can connect to the desk top via wifi, share files and printers and prints successfully. The Vista laptop can connect to the desktop via wifi, share files with the others and can see the printers on the Win7 desktop but I get an access denied mssage when trying to install the printers as shared printers on the Vista laptop. What is stopping the install of the printers?

Hi Jim, Are you using an Administrative account to add the printers? Can you disable the Point and Print restrictions on the Vista client and then check the behaviour? The Point & Print Restrictions Group policy can be edited using gpedit.msc. The policies are located in User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Printers. More Info http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319939 http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/05/04/windows-vista-point-print.aspx Digvijay Nath

Thnx for a reply. I am loathe to enter the regedit world unless absolutely essential. I have looked at the two links and am just confused. Some more details of the problem may help. The Win7 desktop is a very recent replacement for an XP desktop that finally died. The XP desktop, the Win7 laptop and the Vista laptop all worked together very well. The new Win7 desktop and the Win7 laptop have formed a Homegroup and to my simple mind seem to have shut out the Vista laptop. Any comment?

Hi Jim, We dont need to do any registry editing here. On the Vista machine go - Start - run - gpedit.msc - User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Printers. Look for Point and Print restrictions and Disable it. Then from start - run, type "gpupdate /force" and then again try to install the shared printer from the vista machine.Digvijay Nath

got a message that "windows cannot find gpedit.msc did you type the name ....."

Hi Jim, I suspect you are running Windows Vista Home edition without group policy editing. I suggest loading the printer's driver from manufacture manually. After that, go to printer properties and add the port on Port tab. Then manually add a new Local Port with: \\computer_name\shared_printer_name If the issue persists, please also contact the Windows Vista Forum. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/category/windowsvistaitpro Best Regards, NikiPlease remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.