I have an eeebox running with XP 24/7 with an attached printer (Canon IP5300) installed as shared. We have a few other laptops and PC, all with vista, that can access and print on the shared printer without problem.
We just received a new computer with Windows7-64 on it, but it fails to connect the shared printer. I tried connecting the printer with its USB cord directly to the Windows7 PC and the required driver was automatically downloaded and installed. I could then access the printer specific properties, etc. But if I connect it back to the XP computer, the windows7 PC still refused to connect to the remote printer although it now have the drivers. The windows7 is a family pack.
Question 1: How do I solve this?
Second unrelated question: I also have an old canon scanner still perfectly working with XP, but for which I can't find compatible drivers for windows 7. Do I have to buy a new one ?
Best Answer
The solution was to install a 64bit version of the driver on the XP computer. I downloaded the 64bit Canon driver for Vista from the Canon web site and uncompressed it on the XP computer. In the printer properties, there is a button below allowing to specify alternate drivers for other type of computers. I checked x64 at the bottom of the list. A dialog opens requesting to give the path to the .INF file. I found my way into the uncompressed driver folder to the 64bit version which was accepted and installed on XP. The W7 computer was then able to download the driver and could print the test page.
With this configuration, all PC (XP,Vista,W7) can see and use the printer. The eeeBox on which it is connected is used as a small printer server.