Hello everyone, I have two computers on a network, both are running windows 7 RC, while one is 64-bit and one is 32-bit. The 32-bit one is directly hooked up to the internet and a printer. I am trying to connect the other computer to the printer so i can print wireless. I successfully installed the correct drivers for the HP DeskJet 720C printer and now it shows up in the Devices and Printers Screen in the control panel (this is on the 64-bit computer), but when i try to print something, it seems to print but it doesn't. Then the printer stops responding and when i try to troubleshoot it, Windows cannot find a solution. Everything prints fine on the 32-bit computer though, and I'm running Mcafee on the 32-bit computer and when i disable it, the printing still doesn't work, so it's not i firewall issue. Any help would be appreciated, Jonathan

Hi, I had a similar issue with a printer on my home network.Besides my Win7- 64 Bit test system, there are two of my pc's on the networkwhich have printers attached.Although both showed up in 'Devices and Printers ' on the Win7system, I was only able to print to a printer attached to a pc running XP Pro 64 Bit and I assumed that 64 bit drivers was the reason. The other printer attached to a pc running 32 Bit XP Pro showed up as 'unavailable' even though it is 'shared' and available to all other pc's on the network.When I saw your post here I became curious and looked at the obvious missing link in the configs and found everything in order.When I could not find a reason I did an unusual thing. I opened the 'Devices and Printers' display and for no particular reason, I 'double-clicked' on the printer in question.To my amazement, it changed to 'Ready' and I am now able to select it for printing.I still have no idea what the system did to enable it. Pure magic.

Hey, thanks for the reply. The strange thing about my printer is that it says that its ready, but when I print something, it goes unresponsive and sometimes disappears from the devices and printers list. I even tried double clicking on it (lol) and it still does nothing. Hopefully someone from Microsoft knows the answer to this one. Also, I don't want to mess with the homegroup, because last time I did, the printer still didn't work and for some reason one day out of the blue, my C drive locked up and I could not access it. I traced it back to being a homegroup issue that others have had and no one had solved it. I had to reformat the drive and reinstall windows, but luckily I saved all of my important things to my D drive. Everything is working fine now except for this printer issue.

Hi again. Now that you mention an issue with the Homegroup, I only had a small problem incorporating the Win7 system into my existing network.I used a unique name for my original network so that each of four desktops and any laptop that I connected wirelessly through my router, could collect email from an email server running on one of them.The Win 7 system on it's default 'Homegroup'was able toaccess any sharing set up on the other pc's without bridging.Then I triedunsuccessfully to change the 'Homegroup' name to my network workgroup name. This was on the Beta Win7 still.After installing the RC version I again addressed this problem and somehow muddled through many attempts to get the homegroup name changed to my preferred one.This may not work for everyone because I have two internet connections on my router and each is configurable for access.This may have some bearing on how Win7 is either confused by the config or makes use of it.While checking out the settings in 'Devices and Printers' right now, I noticed that when opening the 'printer properties', it still shows 'Offline". Andunder the tab display for 'Ports' there are two tick boxes which enable/disable access to Remote Printer Ports and XPS Printers.On my one the Remote Printer has a tick in it.It is probably a stupid question, but I must assume that you did shareyour printer on the PC where it is attached? Let me know if you experiment further.

Hey again, First, I do have have printer sharing on, and which computer did you go to printer properties, the one hooked up to the printer, or a wireless computer? On the computer hooked up to the printer, I don't have the Remote Printer Ports tick box. On the 64-bit computer hooked up wirelessly to the network, the printer disappeared from the devices and printers screen again and I tried to add it back, and Windows couldn't find it...? This is making me mad, I've searched a lot of forums trying different things, and none of them work, even if they do work for others. I just hope that it's not something really stupid that I forgot to do :).

The printer must be 'Shared' on the PC that it is attached to. The Win7 PC is the one where I checked the printer propertiesfor theremote printerattached toanother PC.The Win7 has no printer attached and that is why it has to use a 'Remote Printer'.Both pc's are hard wired via my router.Another question, is your printer connected by USB cable?

I got the printer to show up again, and the remote printer tick box isn't there, it just has a greyed out, unchecked box labeled enable bidirectional support and another unchecked (but not greyed out) one that says enable printer pooling. This is the case on both computers. And since your computers are both hard wired to the router, while the one computer I am having problems with is wireless, this could make a difference between our cases? I'm not sure. Also, no my printer is connected by a big, thick white cable that has those screws when you plug it in the computer (I don't know what it's called). And I just troubleshooted the printer again and it says that my printer cannot be contacted over the network.

Hi Jonathan.Your printer is connected via a parallell interface cable. Perfect.What I suggest is to just go through the motions of adding a REMOTE printer.Go to 'Devices and Printers' and open your CONTROL PANEL. (Thats under 'Hardware and Sound')Then select 'Add Printer'. This should show up two options.Add a Local Printer - and - Add a Network, Wireless or Bluetooth Printer. Select the Network Printer.The system will search for available printers and display all those found. (You may have done this before.)If you have correctly shared the printer on the pc that the printer is connected to, it should show up in the list.If it does not show up, the problem should be on the pc where the printer is connected.Please try this and let me know what you find and we'll go onfrom there.

Hey, haha yeah I have done this many times. Most of the time the printer shows up, but some times it does not. When it doesn't, it will usually show up later in the day when I try it again. But thats's not the problem, the problem is even though the computer detects the printer, it still cannot print to it. When I print a document, it seems like it should be printing, but it doesn't... nothing happens. The document usually shows up in the printer queue on the wireless computer, but it still never prints. It's like the computer hooked up to the printer never recieves the signal to print. Wierd... Thanks for your help so far though.

Try this. When it does show up, go to the wireless pc where your printer is connected,call up the browser and connect to the internet.This creates a secondary 'homegroup' which may bridge to your Win7 LAN connection.This is how I originallygotmy Win7 homegroup to recognize the rest of my network. It's worth a shot.

The printer is not connected to the wireless computer, the printer is hooked up to the computer that is hooked up directly to the modem. Also, I'm not sure what you mean. The wireless computer has been connected to the internet wirelessly this whole time. There is no homegroup at all. The computer connected to the printer recognizes the wireless computer on the network though... but the wireless computer does not recognize the wired computer.

I GOT IT WORKING!!!! I'll explain how in a second...

Ok, thank you for all your time so far, your last comment got me thinking. When I tried to access the wireless computer over the network, it asked me for a password. I didn't have one on the computer, so I went and made one on both computers. When I was on the wireless computer, on the left side of windows explorer, I clicked on network, then on the name of the wired computer. Then, after I typed in the password that I just made, something caught my eye. Along with all the folders and drives, was an printer icon that was labeled 'hp deskjet 720C' (this is all in windows explorer). I double clicked on it, and it installed the printer. I then went to Devices and printers and saw a printer labeled "Hp Deskjet 720C on (comuter name) - PC". When I added the printer using the 'Add a printer' function, the printer was named "HP Deskjet 720C". I removed the printer named "HP Deskjet 720C" and set the one labeled "Hp Deskjet 720C on (comuter name) - PC" as the default printer. I then printed a test page from open office and WOOHOOO!!!. YAY!! Thx for your time!!!

Hi auburncrazy888. Great work! At least you can use the networked printer now.But I think that what you have done, is to access the PC with printer, through a USER. This is not the same as 'sharing' resources across a network. That requires a 'Homegroup' that each PC must have access to so that you canenable and use network shared resources.If you open your 'Network sharing center' and select 'Homegroup' (bottom left) you will see a link called 'Create a Homegroup'. This is where your challenge starts.Experiment a bit on your system because I found this a bit tricky compared to networkingonXP.At first I could not change the 'Homegroup' name to my preferred 'Workgroup'name (note the different annotation for XP) that I use on my othersystems on the network.However, this is where the 'sharing' is configured. Try creating a homegroup. You can still use the external User and Password access as well.Best of luck. I'll check back again to see if you got any further.

Hey, My cousin and I worked on the homegroup thing for about 2 full days about a month ago. We got everything working except for sharing the printer. It just wasn't working for no particular reason. And then one day I don't know what I did but I completely locked myself out of C drive (it even said that there was nothing on the drive although there was) I saved myself the trouble of messing around with it and just reinstalled windows on the about 2 week old custom built computer. I didn't want to mess with the homegroup thing again and wanted to connect to my printer without it, but nothing was working. That's what led me to this thread. I'll give the homegroup another shot within the next few days when I get the time and I'll get back to you on it.

I have installed the Win7_x64 Ultimate RTM which I downloaded as a subscriber to Technet Plus, and believe it or not, I am going through the same puzzle again.I installed this one on another HD so that I can keep the RC version for daily activity.I havespecially retained the RC so that I can compare it withthe final release. (I alreadymiss the Siamese Fighter background on the desktop.)After I get all the drivers in place I'll take another look at the Homegroup configuration.

Hey, I just tried to get the homegroup working, and to my surprise, everything worked as it's supposed to. Even the printers. I don't know why it's working now and it wasn't before, but whatever. Now I'm fully pleased with windows 7 :). I hope it works for you like it did for me.

Iwent back over the setups on my RC and the RTM system that I just installed to configure my 'Workgroup' name, to match my other XP pc's on my networkto establish howto configure it.As a final check on yours, take a look what the 'Workgroup' name is on your pc's to see if they are the same. The easiest way to get to it is by clicking 'Start' and then Right Click on 'Computer' and select 'Properties'. There you can even change the 'Workgroup' name or 'Computer name'if you wish, by selecting 'Change settings' on the right-hand side.The other thing you can check is whether the system automatically bridged the network connections in yourNetwork and Sharing Center. The strange thing is that it is called 'Homegroup' there.It would just be nice to know how it configured your system to make everything work.

On both computers, the workgroup is called "WORKGROUP". On the network map in the network and sharing center, both computers start out all the way to the left. Then there are lines that lead both computers to the name of my router and then another line leading to the internet.