I have 3 printers connected to the Windows 7 computer - an Epson, a HP LaserJet, and a HP All-In-1. The LaserJet is connected using the paralell port and the other two are using USB ports. The Windows 7 PC is also a dual-boot, two partition PC. The other OS is XP Pro. There are 5 other PC's throughout the house, all using XP, that use the printers. All of the 5 PC's/Laptops connect wirelessly. One laptop is a dual-boot XP Pro/Vista Business. Everything works great when the now booted Windows 7 PC is running XP Pro. Installed all of the printers in Windows 7, made them all shared, printed good test pages to all. Tried installing the HP Laserjet on one of my other PC's. Am able to see the Windows 7 PC in Add a Printer, but clicking the Windows 7 PC name tells me that "You Need To Specify A Valid Network Printer Name." message. Keyed in the \\pcname\printername and got "Windows could not connect to the printer. Operation could not be completed.". Tried installing a printer on another manchine and got the same results. After installing the printers on the Windows7 PC, found out where you are supposed to install "other drivers" for PC's using different OS's. Nothing there for XP, just 64 bit, 86 bit, and another catagory I did't understand. All of my other PC's/laptops are 32 bit. Until this gets resolved, gotta reboot back to XP. MUST be able to access the printers. I hope it's something I'm doing wrong. If not - BIG GOOF, MICROSOFT!

A suggestion: turn off Password Protected Sharing on the Win7 host PC. I don't recall the particulars, but when I looked at it a few months ago I found that its requirements (setting up accounts for the client PCs on the host, etc.) to be sufficiently inconvenient that I had no interest in trying to set it up. I suppose that it makes sense for networks where not every machine is to be permitted to access every printer.It's not hard to do, but the location may not be obvious:Open the Network and Sharing control panel. Click the Change advanced sharing settings (upper left of the window). Uncheck thePassword protected sharing (scroll down, it's the next-to-last entry).You'll still need drivers for each printeron the client machines, I think.