How to sharie 1printer w/ 3 computers?

Question

I have a desktop Dell (Win XP) w/ a printer using a USB cable in the den. I have 2 laptops (hubby's & mine) with Vista that use a wireless router to conect to DSL. I know I need to set up a "network". But, will haveing 2 different operating systems cause a problem to print from the kitchen (mine) to the den's desktop?

Answer 1

As long as you can install drivers for the printer on each machine, it should work. But if the printer is more (like an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax), you may have trouble doing anything more than printing.

Answer 2

Nope... should not be an issue.  As long as you stay in the MS family, it will be easy vice mixing a MAC or a Linux  system in.  Either way, it can be done.  

Basically SHARE out the printer on the computer that it is connected to.  Allow EVERYONE to have access to it under security.  This will allow you to have different passwords or logons on each computer.  Otherwise, you would have to have the same handle/password on the laptops and the printer / computer.

Answer 3

no

either leave the den computer up all the time to share the printer on the network

or buy a printer with a built in LAN port ( becoming more and more common now a days )

or buy a linksys print server and have the printer have it's own ip ( fixed is better ) on the network