Windows Vista™ Inside Out

Sharing a Printer

Although Windows Vista doesn’t have a Sharing wizard for sharing a printer over the network, the process is pretty simple. You configure all options for a printer—whether you plan to share it or not—using the printer’s properties dialog box, which you access from the Printers folder in Control Panel.

To make a printer available to other network users, right-click a printer and click Run As Administrator, Sharing. (If you right-click and choose Sharing without first clicking Run As Administrator, you’re likely to encounter more elevation prompts before you complete your task than if you just bite the bullet and start out running with administrator privileges.) On the Sharing tab, select Share This Printer, and provide a share name, ...