20
4
I am trying to share my USB printer on my main desktop machine to the network so that anyone on my network can access it. Previously, I would just go to the printer properties and enable it in the sharing tab to 'Everyone' but there is no sharing tab for the printer.
How the heck do I share a printer to my network in Windows 10?
Ryan
Posted 2015-08-16T22:30:31.267
Reputation: 312
26
Yes it is possible to share a USB connected printer without homegroups in Windows 10.
On the host PC with the printer, under Device and Printers in Control Panel, right click the printer you want to share, select See what's printing, Select Printer from the menu, select sharing or share this printer, enable the checkbox that reads share this printer.
The thing is that the Sharing tab in the printer properties only shows up for me if I go through the "whats printing" window, and the sharing tab doesn't show up if I right-click properties from the device and printers window.
omencat
Posted 2015-08-16T22:30:31.267
Reputation: 426
1Thank you for this. I couldn't see the "Sharing" tab under properties either. This is a pretty ridiculous method of enabling it. – mpen – 2015-09-30T02:54:56.337
So how do I print from Android? – f.khantsis – 2016-12-06T22:40:57.820
1Not super intuitive... thanks for the share! – Gus Crawford – 2017-03-18T17:09:50.780
1I had no way to control the sharing password, as we also have a home-group. It seems that having my computer registered on our work domain (this is my home "work computer"), also makes it impossible to properly utilize the homegroup options. So, on the other computer that was to use the shared printer I had to login using my computers login-id and password. – Spiralis – 2017-03-19T12:14:56.483
0
Finally got it to work on the computer where I wanted to print from (My Laptop). So after opening the Devices and Printers window and clicking on Add a printer at the top, click on 2nd option "Select a shared printer by name" then click on "Browse". Next screen allowed me to navigate to and select my Network printer that was hooked up to my Desktop via USB.
A Essa
Posted 2015-08-16T22:30:31.267
Reputation: 1
-2
On the computer to which the printer is connected (in our case it was the Windows 10 laptop), share the printer as usual, and when sharing it, set up the share name that is easy to type in. For example, in our case the long name of the printer was "Epson Stylus Photo R200", but we shared it with the name EpsonR200.
On the computer from which you want to connect to this printer (in our case it was the Windows 2000 computer) use the built-in Add Printer wizard and choose the 'Add Local Printer' option.
Press Next, and on the next page choose the 'Create a new port' option and make sure the 'Local port' option is selected:
When you press Next, Windows will prompt you to enter the port name. Enter the UNC name of the shared printer, in the format: //computername/sharedname . In our case, the computer name of the Windows 10 laptop was laptop, and we had previously set up the shared name of the printer as EpsonR200 (see Step 1 above), so we entered the port name as:
If you don't know the network name of your computer, you can find it out as follows: right-click on the This PC folder (or Computer) in Explorer or some other file manager, and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. On that page, look for the 'computer name' text. That's the name you need to enter instead of 'laptop' in our example. Be sure to use the name of the computer that has the printer attached to it, not the one from which you are trying to connect to the printer through the network!
Next, Windows will probably ask you to select the printer make and model, install its drivers, etc. Keep providing the information that the wizard requires, according to your specific printer. When done, Windows should add the new printer to the computer, and you should be able to use it to print files. The procedure described above worked for us, hopefully it will work for you, too.
bist
Posted 2015-08-16T22:30:31.267
Reputation: 1
3
possible duplicate of Windows 7 printer sharing without homegroups?
– Keltari – 2015-08-16T22:32:55.8101Doesn't seem to behave the same as Windows 7, so no, I don't believe this is a duplicate. – Ryan – 2015-08-16T22:33:50.820
What behaves differently? Does the solution in that question work for you? – MC10 – 2015-08-16T22:37:43.337
1No, it does not. Beyond that, that question is specifically referencing Windows 7. A person looking to solve this issue with Windows 10 would likely pass it over, so I believe this question to Windows 10 is pertinent even if the steps to resolve are only slightly different. – Ryan – 2015-08-16T22:39:48.670
@miR if the answer is the same, we tend to favour either editing the original to expand the question a bit, or simply closing the new one as duplicate to act as a pointer. It does no-one any good to create a new question with every software release, unless it's significantly different. – Bob – 2015-08-16T22:48:43.780
Understood, doesn't hurt to try as Windows is still pretty similar. @Bob That answer did not work for miR. – MC10 – 2015-08-16T22:49:56.537
@MC10 I'm talking about the general case, in response to the "passing it over" argument. Not making any judgements about these two questions specifically. – Bob – 2015-08-16T22:51:48.350
@Bob - I understand and agree with 'every release' but at the same time, this isn't a service pack. Windows 10 is a pretty large release and while similar to Windows 8, it is quite a bit different cosmetically and under the hood. And from 7-10 is akin to 95-XP. Regardless, this is likely a meta discussion. – Ryan – 2015-08-16T22:59:39.970