Windows7 Installed - Not Printing

J

John Scoble

Junior Member
I am running Snow Leopard with Parallels 5, and Windows 7 on my MacBook. I have a Lexmark Prestige Pro 805 running wirelessly under Snow Leopard. I added this printer to Windows 7, using the recommended HP Colour Laserjet 2800 Series PS printer driver. During the installation, I successfully printed a test page under Windows, but cannot print from any program. I tried printing from Wordpad, but nothing comes from the printer.

Help!
 
In the Mac Preferences/Sharing enable "Printer Sharing". That seems to get turned off sometimes and the Mac will block the "PC" from sharing it's printer if it is not enabled.
 
Thanks for this suggestion, but it is already shared.

Further info:
The printer is installed twice under the MAC OS and three times under Windows7. Under Mac OS, it is installed as wireless and USB, and both work.

Firstly, under Windows 7, it is installed directly as USB. When the USB port is directed to Parallels Windows 7, printing works.

The printer is also installed twice under Parallels Windows 7 as the Mac connected USB and Wireless printers. With both these, I can print a Test page, but not from a program, (e.g. Wordpad).

Any further ideas anyone? I do need to be able to print wirelessly. Help!
 
I'd remove both Mac printers, then install the printer for your computer again. I wonder if having the same printer listed twice could cause a problem. If it's hooked directly use the USB one, if it's hooked to an Airport or is WiFi enabled install the WiFi one. You could also see if there is a Snow Leopard printer driver update for it.

With Printer sharing you need both the button next to "Printer Sharing" and the button next to the printer you want to share. Having no printer selected is the same as not having printer sharing enabled. I wasted 20 minutes playing with this one evening.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I've actually removed and re-installed the printers several times, both under MacOS and also under Parallel Windows, all to no avail! I've also had only one of the USB and/or wireless printers installed under Parallels Windows, still without success. It was only after the Parallel Windows USB and Wireless (Time Capsule Airport) installations - both pointing to the Mac-installed printers - did not work that I tried a direct Parallels Windows USB installation, and that worked.

I've checked the sharing tick boxes - both the general Printing sharing, and the sharing for each printer (different names for the USB and wireless connections) are ticked.
 
Is anyone there who can help? Incidentally, I've also tried the Bonjour route. I get the No permission message, but the apparent solution of reducing the length of the network name doesn't apply (or work).

Can anyone help? It is useless to have a system which will not allow me to print!
 
An alternate to using Parallels to print is to let Windows have access to the printer directly. For a time I used the same setup I use for Boot Camp. Since you are also connecting to your printer through Time Capsule you ought to be able to download Bonjour Printing from Apple (will be with other Boot Camp support files).

If you disable the Parallels printer you ought to be able to let the Bonjour wizard find and configure your printer. It's just like hooking it up on a real PC so you have to ensure your ports are open, etc. I had to download both Bonjour and the latest Brother printer drivers from their site. Apparently the ones that came as part of Windows 7 were not compatible with Windows 7 and/or Bonjour. I did not need to hook the printer directly to the USB port to configure it as it said on the Apple web site once I had the most recent Windows printer drivers.

Now I can select either printer (Parallels or Bonjour Brother) when running Parallels,. There is no real difference in speed or quality so if Parallels worked for you as it is supposed to that would be FAR easier than setting up a real PC and with equal print results.
 
Success!!! Many thanks.

A bit more information: I finally installed the Lexmark printer using the original Windows version of the Lexmark All-in-one software (I could not find a driver only file). I had tried installing that software before, but that did not work. Since then, I had tried to speed up Parallels, as it was painfully slow, and one forum suggestion was that in Parallels, the Network should be in Bridge mode. It appears that making that change enabled me to have access to the files and network in such a way that the installation succeeded, and that the printer now works wirelessly.

Many thanks for your final suggestion, once again. I remain mystified as to why I cannot get the printing working using Bonjour or accessing the printer via the Macbook, but hey-ho, I am now happy.
 
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