Add a network printer to your Windows XP computer

Adding a network printer to your home network is, now days, an absolute necessity. Most households have a home network and will find a network printer, space saving, and money saving at the same time. You will only need one printer to service all of your computers in your house.

It does not matter if your home network is wireless or not, the same installation procedures apply. Go here if you are installing a network printer on Windows Vista.

To install a network printer on Windows XP you will need

You must have a printer installed to a computer on your network and printer sharing enabled.
To know the name of the computer that the printer is actually installed on.
To know the share name of the printer.

Here’s how to add a network printer to your Windows XP computer

Go to the control panel which can be found by clicking the start button.
In the left bar click on switch to classic view.
Then click on the Printer and Faxes Icon.
Choose to Add Printer in the left sidebar.
A dialog box will appear. You can choose to add a network Printer. Then ask the computer to find it. If it does find it your done.
When the computer does not find your network printer manually type it in yourself.

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In order for the computer to find a network printer, sharing must be enabled. See how to enable printer sharing

When this is done you can help the computer find your printer by typing in the path to your network printer yourself. Here’s how to find the network printer path

See the picture below. The printer I am sharing has a hand underneath it and the network printer that another computer is sharing with me has a bar under it.

Now when I print something it will go to the network printer because I have also made it my default printer. (tick next to it)

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