danny’s space

I post this here in the hope that it might help someone else who is having the same issues as me with making Vista work with an old printer like the HP Deskjet 930C. It’s a lovely printer, quite the workhorse. But when Vista came, printing to the 930C through a networked XP computer connected to the Vista laptop didn’t work, at all.

After a bit of googling, came up with a few websites:

http://thevistaforums.com/lofiversion/index.php/t29452.html, which suggested having the most up to date drivers on the ’server’ machine.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/vista_printer_install_problem.htm, which had general suggestions for making network printers work with Vista.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1464064&page=5, which contained the solution that worked for me.

Basically, you need to make sure that the server machine (the networked computer to which the printer is connected) has the most up-to-date drivers for that printer. Then, instead of adding a network printer in Vista, use the Add a local printer option in the Add Printer dialog, and then Create a new port of type Local Port, and as the Port Name, use \\computername\printername, where computername is the network name of the server computer, and printername is the shared name of the printer.

Vista should then pick the correct driver - if not, select it from the list. Then install the printer, and print a test page - hopefully successfully!