Sharing an ext hard drive and a printer

lazer46

lazer46

lazer46

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14 Apr 2010
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My mate has an office with 2 pc's, both using win 7.

They have one router with 4 ethernet ports.

They want to share the internet and most importantly, an external Hard Drive conected to PC1 and a big industrial printer that has an ethernet port.

Any ideas as to how to set it all up please? Many thanks indeed.
 
Plug all networked stuff into router.

Share the external hard drive on PC it is connected to.

The printer may require configuring, if it is an HP, it is likely to be a JetDirect card and full instructions are available on the tinternet.
 
I wouldn't do it via homegroup personally, what if someone ever brings a non Windows 7 machine in to network? Set it to work, change the workgroup name to something nice for your business and try that. You need to setup shares for stuff, ie the printer, right click on it and choose sharing.
 
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some routers will have very basic drivers built in, if it's a jetdirect card, google it and you will find plenty of guides, and by the sound of the size of it, then it should be jetdirect.
 
the way it normally works is like this, you plug the printer into the network then install the software for it on each machine. Use the 'add network printer' tool to scan the network for the printer.

As for the shared external hard drive, right click>share. It is a little bit more complicated but there are approximetly a zillion guides online about windows folder sharing.
 
Its a DP 150 Panasonic.

Tried ethernet cable to router but no signal from printer.

Tried USB / shared. Printer seen on other PC, goes to print, says printer idle even though on!
 
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