Platinum Edition Using® Microsoft® Windows® XP

Using Shared Printers

Microsoft has done a remarkable job making network printing effortless. It's seamless and easy. In fact, given the low cost of network hardware, it's worth installing a network just to be able to share printers, even if you have only two computers.

Chapter 7, “Printing and Faxing,” discussed most of the details of working with network printers. In this section, we'll go into extra detail on a few topics. Later in the chapter, we'll discuss how to share a printer on your computer with the rest of the network.

Locating and Connecting to Network Printers

To use any networked printer, you have to set up an icon for the printer in your Printers window. One way to do this is to browse or search your network for shared printers. ...