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Today we ran into a problem between Mac OS 10.6.2 Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Printer Sharing. Both machines had the correct drivers installed, and the printer was shared from the Win7 box with full permissions for everyone, yet we could not connect to it from the Mac. SMB file sharing was working fine, and other windows machines could easily connect to the printer. I couldnt find a single web site with the correct solution, and eventually we figured it out after an hour of head scratching.
Here’s the fix…
After installing the printer using a USB cable on both machines, hook the printer to the windows box and do the following…
1st – Share the printer on the windows box, and share it as “printer” or something easy to remember without special characters and spaces, etc. We named ours HP because it was an hp psc 4210. Now, give the windows box a static IP address, and setup user for printing (or you can use the admin user / password for a later step). Make sure the permissions are set correctly on the printer.
2nd – Setup a printer on the Mac (though it wont work yet). Go to System Preferences > Print & Fax > “+” (Plus) sign / add printer > Select IP > Select LPD (Line Printer Daemon) > type in the IP address of the windows box in the address field > change the name of the printer to the printer model or something simple (HP in our case) > Select “Print Using” > Select “Printer Software” > Select the printer model / driver for the printer you have.
3rd – Open Terminal from Utilities in the Applications menu within Finder. Type in the following:
sudo -i (enter your password)
ps -ef|grep cupsd (note the number in the second column)
kill X (where X is the number from above)
cp /etc/cups/printer.conf /etc/cups/printer.conf.backup (copies your current printer.conf to printer.conf.backup)
nano /etc/cups/printer.conf
Locate the line that says LPD://[IP Address of Windows Box] and change it to “smb://username:password@[ip address of windows box]/[Printer Share Name]
Ours looked like this
smb://user:pass@10.1.1.50/HP
After making the change, use ctrl+o to write the changes to printer.conf, then ctrl+x to exit nano editor.
4th – Now restart cupsd again or reboot the computer
ps -ef|grep cupsd (note the number in the second column)
kill X (where X is the number from above)
You should be able to print now!
Mike
/ December 18, 2009Just found this on apple’s site…
Tip: See Mac 101: File Sharing for details about how to add your Mac to a Windows Workgroup. This is often needed to see Windows printer shares.
alex
/ January 11, 2010thanks for posting this, but it difficult to understand. under windows 7, once you installed the printer. you cant right click and share printer. but i do have file and printer sharing ‘on’ under advanced network setting. anywhow, i couldnt get it to work. any further help?
Mike
/ January 11, 2010Should be able to right click and go to printer sharing or printer properties (about half way down the list that appears). If you go the printer properties route, then you will need to click on the sharing tab, then share the printer. I’ll double check on my virtual machine running win7 later and post pics if possible.
Aaron
/ January 17, 2010After adding the printer, I still didn’t have any entries in the printer.conf file. Any reason why that is?
Mike
/ January 17, 2010Did you add the printer using a USB cable first? I’m not sure if that is required, it had already been done prior to our arrival with this particular incident.