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Home networks, both wired and wireless, are as common as cotton candy at the county fair. Oddly enough, what isn’t as common is having a networked printer. Many opt to simply print from the computer that the printer is physically connected to. In some cases, they choose this route because they feel that it is simply too difficult to network their printer or they don’t truly have a home network.
It is often assumed that if you have multiple computers at home and they all use the same internet access, then they are networked. A key component to computers being networked is that they have the ability to share information and resources between them. When multiple computers access the internet through a hub, they do not always share resources. This may be due in part to configuring each of the computers differently when using the Windows network wizard.
To network your printer, the first step is to make sure that all of your computers are on the same network. When using the Windows network wizard to configure your network, ensure that you make copies of the settings. You are given this option at the end of the network wizard. The settings are small enough to be saved on a floppy disk for older computers or you could also save it to a thumb drive. When you go to configure the remaining computers in your home network, use the saved settings from the first computer that you configured.
Now that all of your computers are on the same page, printing your first page has become a lot easier. The next step is to set your computers to share mode. There really isn’t a share mode. You are just enabling the share printer feature. To do this you need to open the Control Panel from the start menu of the computer to which the printer is physically connected. You should see the Printer and Fax header there. After you have opened the Printers and Faxes header, right click the icon for the printer that you want to share. A drop down list should appear. Select Sharing from this list. A dialog box with tabs should appear. Enable the Share this printer function by clicking it with your mouse.
On the other computers on your network go to the Printers and Faxes header and select the add printer option. Choose the network printer option and select the printer from here. There is no harm in setting it as your default printer if you have more than one computer. If your home network has various operating systems, then you will need to make sure that the older systems have the proper drivers for the printer. An added piece of good news is that if your printer is one of the newer all-in-one printer, scanner, faxes, then you may be able to share the scanner and faxing features of the printer as well.