How to Share a Local Printer in Windows Vista

The first part involves configuring the printer on the host system as a shared resource. To do that, just follow these steps:

1) Log into the Host PC using an account with administrative privileges and click Start > Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center.
2) Go to the Sharing and Discovery section and click on the down arrow next to the word Printer sharing
3) Select Turn on printer sharing and press Apply. At this point the following options should now all be set to on; Network discovery, File sharing, Printer sharing and Password protected sharing
4) Now click Start > Control Panel >Printers and right-click on the printer you’d like to print to and select Sharing
5) Verify that the options Share this printer and Render print jobs on client computers are checked
6) Assign the printer a Share name. For our example we’ll call it HPINKJET.
7) Now click on the Security tab and verify that the group Everyone has the Print Allow option checked. Click OK when finished.
8) Make a note of the printer’s share name and the host computer name because you’ll need it later. You can find the host computer’s name by clicking Start > Control Panel >System and Maintenance and select System. It can be found under the section Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings. For our example we’ll say the host computer name is OFFICE_PC.

We’re now ready to complete the second part of this task which is installing the printer to your laptop (a.k.a. the client PC). Before you start the installation, make sure you have the computer name of the host PC and the share name you assigned to the printer.

1) On the client PC go to Start > Control Panel > Printers
2) At the top of the window press the Add a printer button.
3) At the Add Printer dialog box select Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer and press Next.
4) You should see a message that says No printers were found. Select the option The printer that I want isn’t listed.
5) On the next screen click Select a shared printer by name and enter the name of the host PC and the printer using the following syntax \computernameprintername. Using the names from our example the syntax would be \OFFICE_PCHPINKJET. Press Next.
6) At this point the computer will automatically go out to the network to retrieve the printer driver and configure it for use with your system. The system will probably prompt you for a username and password. If it does, enter the account credentials you use when logging into your parent’s PC (a.k.a. Host). Also be sure to check the box that says Remember my password and press OK.
7) Next it will ask you to name the printer, give you the option of setting this printer as the default and to print a test page. Once completed, click Finished. Your printer is now set up and ready to go.

While this solution should provide you with the relief that you’re looking for, it’s not without its problems. Reliability has a tendency to be an issue, but typically it’s nothing that a reboot couldn’t resolve. Secondly, in order for you to maintain access to that printer, the host PC will need to remain on all the time. So make sure the host isn’t configured to go to sleep or into hibernation. If it does, you will lose access to the printer until the host PC is turned back on.