Share one Printer with the whole house

I just did a support call this weekend and found that my client had two printers in his home. One was installed in the office and the other was downstairs for the kids. I asked why they needed two printers, and they said that occasionally the kids want to print something and it's too much hassle to put the file on a disk and bring it upstairs.

They weren't aware that if the computers are networked, it is quite easy to share printers across the network. Here's how it's done.

Go to the computer that is connected to the printer.
Click Start -> Control Panel -> Printers and Scanners
Right click on the printer you'd like to share and click Sharing
Select the "Share this Printer" button and give it a name.

Then go to the other computer
Click Start -> Control Panel -> Printers and Scanners
Under "Printer Tasks" on the left hand side click "Add Printer"
Click Next and then "Browse for a Printer"
If the computers are all part of the same windows "workgroup" then the printer will be found. If not, then you can give a specific path \\computername\printername.

That's it, now you can try to print a test page and voila!

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