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I have a friend that has 2 Windows XP machines, 1 Windows 8 machine, and 2 network printers on his network. The network is all cabled, no Wifi used.
The problem he is having is that if the Win 8 machine is turned off, print jobs from the Win XP machines won't print and just sit in the print queue until they fail. However, as soon the Win 8 machine is turned on before the print job fails, the print jobs will go to the printer.
If the Win 8 machine is disconnected from the network, the Win XP machines don't have any problems printing.
It appears that Win 8 is doing something to the network that is causing a problem, even when it is shut down.
Does anyone know how to solve his problem?
fnord_ix
Posted 2014-02-10T02:03:26.607
Reputation: 2 534
1when you say cabled, do you mean USB or Cat5? I just want to be clear, secondly this might be a software issue that you are connected to the windows 8 pc, and not directly to the LAN IP of the printer. – Sickest – 2014-02-10T02:25:53.060
It is cabled via ethernet. Probably Cat5, but might be Cat6. – fnord_ix – 2014-02-10T06:29:17.573
That's a tricky one. Are the printers connected using a computer name or an ip address? I did see this kind of issues years ago where the "most recent windows" in a workgroup decides to become the workgroup's "domain controller" (i don't remember the official Microsoft name for this, but that was the idea). My guess is the xp machines can't resolve the printers network names. Try using ip addresses instead. – LeFauve – 2014-02-10T09:10:48.577
@LeFauve, "Preferred Master Browser" would be the term you are looking for (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc959896.aspx)
– Mitch – 2014-02-10T20:04:39.980Thank you @Mitch, that's what i was looking for. As I said it was years ago, so the OP issue may be different, but I'd still try that first. – LeFauve – 2014-02-10T22:34:29.330