Macbook can't find printer connected to XP

Does the account which shared the printer on the XP PC have a username and password?

Another option create an admin account on the PC which matches the shortname and password on the Mac and use that account to share the printer.

Printing to a printer on a XP PC from a Mac running 10.4.x
http://tech.ifelix.net/3015.html

You may need to use a third-party driver such as the HPIJS drivers or the Gimp-Print drivers, but this is not the case with all printers.

iFelix

Joshua, did you solve this problem? I am having precisely the same issue (iBook running Panther and PC running Vista with Epson R1800 printer connected by usb to the Vista PC). Everything works fine - sharing files over the workgroup etc, but the add printer dialogue keeps asking me for a password and accepts nothing. The printer is shared fine with an XP laptop with no password required but problem seems to be at the mac end. If you found a solution I'd love to hear it. thanks

Hi,
Here's what I got from support after 5 weeks of the engineers "working on it". I hope it helps

Here are the instructions to manually add a printer. If your uncertain of any steps just email me and let me know what time tomorrow or the next day would be good for you and I will phone you to try and help get this sorted out.

1) System Preferences > Print & Fax > + (Add Printer)

2) Control-click on More Printers (or anywhere on the toolbar of the Add Printer window) and select "Customize Toolbar..." from the contextual menu.

3) Drag Advanced (gear icon) to the toolbar and click Done.

4) Click the Advanced icon on the toolbar.

5) Complete the fields as follows:
Type: Windows
URL: smb://192.168.10.4/HPINKJET
Name: (type the name the customer would like to see for this printer in Mac OS X)
Print Using: (select the driver to use when printing to this printer)

thanks cowvet, but no luck so far. I tried what you suggested but there is no "advanced" icon to drag. Maybe because I am using OSX 10.3 and you are using 10.5? I can set up a printer as IP or USB or whatever with an address, but not in Windows printing, so I can't progress for the moment. Kind of you to offer to phone but I am in UK. Anyway not around to do this tomorrow. Will let this thread know if I find the answer but not yet! Any more ideas welcome. Thanks a lot for your help.

I have managed to find the "advanced" dialogue - you have to press "alt" while clicking on "add". This then allows you to manually set up your network printer using windows via Samba. I have tried various syntax for the entry (with and without passwords, with and without WORKGROUP, using Vista PC name or IP address or both) and have succeeded in setting up my Epson manually (though it still doesn't appear on the list in the non-advanced dialogue). However, when I try to print the progress gets to 8% then stops with one of 2 messages: "unable to connect to SAMBA Host...ERROR: Connection failed with error NTSTATUS_ACCESSDENIED" or "...error NTSTATUSUNSUCCESFUL". So still stuck I'm afraid.

OK folks, here is the solution!! At least it worked for me.

YES! It finally works!! I gave up on the whole Samba/ Print from Windows option and tried the LPD option instead and it worked. Here's the link where I found the solution:

http://applejac.typepad.com/applejacmacintosh_users/2007/03/mac_osxwindows.html

There is an explanation in the top part of the article, and a fuller one in the discussion below:

"on the vista machine that is connected to the printer
1. hold the start button on the keyboard and hit 'r'.
2. type 'cmd' and hit enter.
3. type 'ipconfig' and hit enter.
4. write down the ip address of the vista machine.
5. open control panel.
6. open the printers option and write down the name of the shared printer you want to use from the mac.
7. go back to the control panel and open 'programs and features.
8. on the left sidebar click 'turn windows features on or off'.
9. expand the print services folder and enable all 3 options.
10. hit ok and then wait for the dialog to go away (might take a few minutes).

on the mac you want to print from
1. go to system preferences
2. open print and fax
3. click the plus sign to add a new printer.
4. hold the option button and click 'more printers'.
5. on the top pulldown menu select 'advanced'.
6. on the device pulldown menu select 'lpd/lpr host or printer'.
7. enter the name you want to use for the printer.
8. in the device url field enter:
lpd://(vista computer ip address)/(vista printer name)
9. select the printer model.
10. click add."

There are several key moments in this discovery which other people need to be aware of:

1. You need to set up printer sharing in Vista without the need for a password
2. You need to know that when the Mac asks for a password in the Printer setup Utility you can just leave the boxes blank
3. You need to know that you can get the "advanced"add printer dialogue by holding down the alt key while clicking "add" (or the "option" key as mac users strangely call it (despite the word "alt" being printed on the key!!)
4. You have to know to install the latest Gutenprint software on your Mac (from Sourceforge.net) to drive the network printer, and you have to select your actual printer before you finally add it - otherwise you end up with a generic driver which won't work.
5. You need to make sure that the name of your Vista computer and the name of your printer are usable by OSX - they can't have any spaces or dashes or non alphanumeric characters - I had to change both the computer name and the printer share name.

Each of these held me up for a long time - there is no way anyone would know these things without help from forums as there is nothing about them in the help section of OSX as far as I can see. Then, if your printer is not appearing in the Print from Windows dialogue in the Apple setup routine, and the Advanced option of putting in the smb: details just gives error messages when you try to print, you have to abandon the smb thing and go for the LPD option as per the instructions above.

I tried a number of other things and don't know whether any of them actually made any difference or not, but if the solution isn't working it is worth trying them just in case.

- I installed Bonjour on the Vista machine (as far as i can tell it made no difference, but who knows?)
- I opened Port 5353 on my wireless router because i read that this is the port that Bonjour needs (if Bonjour is irrelevant this wouldn't be necessary but who knows?)

There are a variety of syntax structures you can use when setting up the printer manually in OSX, but in general it seems to work better if you use IP addresses rather than workgroup and computer names where possible. In the end the syntax that worked for me was the very simple lpd://(ipaddress of Vista machine)/(share name of printer).

Anyway, I'm glad it works and ho[pe this solution helps others.

AWESOME! You FINALLY solved my issue!!