How do I connect two computers to a printer?

greendj27

greendj27

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Ok, I am moving in a week to a nice two bedroom apartment with my gf and we are setting up an office area in the second bedroom. I need help on connecting two computers to the same printer. We already have a wireless router, is there anything else I need? If not, how do I set this up? Any help would be appreciated.
 
you're best bet is to either have a router or a hub - router being your best bet.

You set the printer up to one pc, share it (right click printer > sharing). You may have options for the driver to include.

Once it's shared, all you need is the ip address or name of the pc and access it via network places or by typing it's UNC name from the run line such as: \\192.186.x.x or \\computername

once you open that, you shoud see the shared device. right click it and choose to install the drivers.

that should get you up and running. Just a quick run down.
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caveman option would be a printer a/b switch where both computers have 25pin straight-through cables connected to the switch box and the box connected to the printer. You flip the switch to select the computer that wants to print - they do make auto-switchers as well.
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but i'd go with the router so you can share the internet connection as well. Some routerrs also have a built in print server option as well...but it's not nessasary.
 
What I did in my home was I had one computer physically connected to the printer through the printer cable, and made the printer a shared printer on the network (go to printers in control panel, right click the printer, select "Share," and configure the settings). The only drawback is that the computer that is connected to the printer must be on for you to print from the other computer.

edit: mcwilliams132 beat me to it.
 
The better (and more expensive) option is to buy a print server box for the printer, then give the printer its own IP address. Then both computers can print to it, without having to worry about a switchbox or which machine was powered on first. A good NetGear print server will run about $30.
 
[quote name='dd_mcdoodle']What I did in my home was I had one computer physically connected to the printer through the printer cable, and made the printer a shared printer on the network (go to printers in control panel, right click the printer, select "Share," and configure the settings). The only drawback is that the computer that is connected to the printer must be on for you to print from the other computer.

edit: mcwilliams132 beat me to it.[/QUOTE]

Exactly my setup. Keeping on isn't a problem, they're usually on 24x7 anyway, and if not, they boot up in 30 seconds. Especially since you already have a router. Make sure both pc's are in the same 'workgroup', and you should have no problems. Added benefit: it's usually a lot quicker and easier to share folders and just transfer files across the network than emailing them. If you have a router, that's got some built-in safety, but you should probably also password protect the 'share' access.
 
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