Sharing a Printer

[#1]

Wondered if anyone could help me out?
I have a peer to peer network consisting of 1 desktop, and 2 laptops. I have a printer connected to the desktop, and shared. Things worked fine until my user profile on the desktop became corrupt. I setup a new profile, but with a different name. Since then it has been a nightmare to print to this printer over the network. I tried uninstalling the network printer from the laptop I was using, and readding it, but it would not find it on the network. I tried from the laptops admin account, and everything OK. ( the administrator accounts all have the same password). If I try to access a share on the desktop, I get asked for a username and password to authenticate myself, probably as I do not have the same username and password on the desktop, but when I have done this, I can see the printer again. I do suspect its all down to not having the same username and password now, on the desktop, and all the systems are set to authenticate as yourself, rather than authenticate as guest. I also have found no workaround for this, as I cannot access NTFS permissions on a printer, as I can on a file/folder. Anyone know how to get around this without changing usernames on the other systems??, or is it easier to get a print server. I was looking at the netgear PS121. Anyone had any experience with this?

[#2]

I currently have a pair of PS101's in use and they are fine and easily configurable with a web browser.
(if your printer has a parallel port)

[#3]

Personally I would short circuit all this hassle for such a small network and go ahead and get a print server. I haven't any experience of the Netgear PS121, but Netgear stuff in general is pretty good quality.
Cheers
Mike

[#4]

Thanks for the advice chaps.  I assumed that using a print server would negate the need to enter a username and password or have the same username and password on all systems, as the printer will not be hosted on a specific machine. Is this a wrong assumption. I do not have a parallel printer, its USB, which the PS121 seems to accept, according to the literature.  I am not really bothered about having to enter a username and password to access a network resource, its just the printer issue that was annoying the hell out of me, although the prospect of spending nothing is appealing 8). I will try setting the same username on the desktop again. It was  all the same before the corrupt profile, will XP Pro still accept a username, even though it has been used before, and deleted.

[#5]

Sorry about spending your hard-earned cash for you (which I didn't)
Keep plugging away....
The lessons learned that way are the stickiest.
Good luck

BTW I could have suggested setting up a domain £££

[#6]

Thanks James.  Explanation good cheers. XP sharing, whilst can be good, is a pain comapred to a domain model. Dont think my network warrents a domain controller just yet ;D.  I changed things around from defaults, so userrs authenticated as themselves rather than as guest in the local security policy. I will recreate the username, and see what happens.

[#7]

Its unusual for a profile to be corrupt. Your problem will be that anything you have done on the old profile will still be there so file permissions etc will show as goblde goog as the sid of the old profile is missing.
So depending on what permissions you have set  you may need to take ownership of the files to get things right

[#8]

Well......  I checked the desktop system, and the old username had been deleted, checking in all the normal places, for any remants of it. I recreated the same username and password as I have on the other systems, but used tweak UI to hide from the welcome screen, as its now only used for printer/file sharing use ( I have welcome screen on as my wife likes it, I have a normal logon dialog on the laptops!!!).  Deleted the printer from the laptop, and recreated it, worked perfectly. Thanks a million guys, and it didnt cost me a penny ;D.  I may invest in a print server in the future, if the netowrk gets any bigger ( ie the kids wanting their own systems etc.  Prob dosnt need one at 10mnths old yet ;))