[DiOrio]

Hello. I am a computer user but do not have deep computer skills. I have a problem that I can't fix in trying to get one of my home laptops to print via wifi to an ethernet connected printer.

I have one desktop running Vista 64 and connected directly via ethernet to router. I also have two laptops (one running Vista Home Basic and the other running Vista Home Premium) each connected to the network via internal wifi. My printer is a Brother MFC-620cn, which has an ethernet connection, and to which I have connected her directly to the router.

As for the desktop, I went to control panel and did all the normal clicks for adding a new printer via the network. It was a breeze and in 2 minutes I was successfully printing through the ethernet connection.

Likewise for my Lenovo laptop with the Vista Home Premium -- in two minutes it recognized the printer at 10.0.0.8, loaded the driver from who knows where, and zing I was printing.

But my HP laptop with Vista Basic is not buying it. Even though it locates the Brother printer at 10.0.0.8, when I hit the 'next' key it refuses to recognize the printer, and even though I go forward and load the driver for the printer, it fails to print. I have removed the driver completely (as an 'administrator') so that upon trying to reload the driver it does not tell me the driver is already present, but to no avail.

The desktop and the Lenovo still print fine, but the HP is simply being stubborn and I've run out of amateur attempts to walk around this problem. Again, the only thing I can see as being different is that this laptop is running Vista Basic while the others are not.

What am I doing wrong? Would upgrading to Vista Premium solve the problem (I looked at the MS website to see the differences between Basic and Premium -- and it appears that both should be able to handle network printing so I am stumped).

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my problem.

-Anthony

[mctw]

vista does not generally need drivers for printers ive found, its about the only good thing about vista. however, for some printers it does. just shooting in the dark here 'cos im a diehard XP user, but maybe basic and home premium have slightly different stock drivers.

just a question on what youve put, when u say you load the driver, is that off of the cd for the printer? or using the ones built into vista.. 'cos i may be barking up the wrong tree here!

[DiOrio]

The driver was in Vista for both my desktop and the Vista Premium laptop. When that driver wouldn't work in my 'bad' laptop, I even went to Brother and downloaded a driver for the printer that works for Vista (printer is pre-Vista genre).

Thanks for your input. I'm thinking more and more that Vista Basic is the problem.

[serverguy]

Have you tried installing the printer driver and then printing to the printer when it is attached locally via USB?

If that works, then go through and set it up for network printing again and it may well work.

That has worked for me a lot of times before.

[DiOrio]

OK, I see what you're saying. If I can get the driver to work with a direct connection, then go back and reinstall the driver as a remote connection, it may work. Sounds freaky deeky, but I guess it's worth a shot! Leave it to Microsoft....

[mctw]

you dont even have to reinstall it once if it works on USB. just go into the printer properties and change the port that it sends on.