For a friend, I am trying to share a USB Canon pixma ip3000 printer between two computers in his home network. But I can't get it to work due tot a Canon driver problem.
The printer is connected to the Windows 7 (64 bit) computer, and we would like to be able to print from a Windows XP computer. 'Normally' it should be no problem to use Windows printer sharing, however, because one machine is 32-bit and the other is 64-bit, installing an extra driver is required. T
he driver provided by canon (here) is described as a 'Canon Inkjet Printer Driver Add-On Module'. The problem is that the .inf file contained in the .exe file isn't accepted as a driver when prompted by the Printer Sharing Wizard, I suspect because it is an add-on driver (whatever that may be).
I've connected and installed the printer locally on the XP machine first (which works), so that the XP machine would already know the driver when using it as a network printer, but that doesn't work; the wizard still wants a driver file.
Anybody suggestions how to get this working?
Maybe there is some sort of generic driver (would be OK even with limited functionality)?
Best Answer
I had a similar problem. Windows 7 64-bit with canon pixma 4500 which I wanted to share with Vista 32-bit.
Printer worked under Windows 7, connected to the Vista laptop also, but wouldn't share.
I downloaded the canon driver (NOT the add-on module) from canon for 32-bit Vista to the Windows 7 PC.
It comes as a selfextracting executable, but this will not run on Windows 7 64-bit. Exctract it using winzip. You'll end up with a driver folder in which you find the .inf file (in my case ip4500.inf).
It should be possible to add it as a driver for the x86 architecture through start->devices and printers, select you printer, rightclick, select printer properties and then enable the sharing options and select install additional drivers. Click on x86 and press OK. Point to the location of the inf file and press ok. The 32-bit printer driver should be added to your Windows 7 64-bit.
I say 'should' as in my case it did not work immediately. Instead of installing, Windows 7 could not find the proper driver (in my case for 'Canon Inkjet ip4500 series').
To solve this, use notepad to edit the .inf file of the downloaded driver. In it, there are 3 locations where the printer is described as 'Canon ip4500 series'. Add the word 'Inkjet' to it at the right place and try again. It worked for me.
Apparantly, Canon or Microsoft had been so 'wise' to rename the printer from 'Canon ip4500 series' to 'Canon Inkjet ip4500 series'. Windows 7 is so 'smart' to look for an extra driver only on your local PC (rather than find it the same way Windows update will find it) and only based on the (renamed) printer name in the Windows 7 driver (rather than the key provided by the printer itself).