Printer sharing between XP and Windows 8

[Feenix]

I have a windows 8 laptop, which is part of a network on which there is a desktop running XP 32bit.  The XP machine has a Printer, an HP LaserJet 1009, which I want to access from the windows 8 laptop.  The machines can see each other on the network and ping each other with 0% packet loss.

I click Add Printer on the windows 8 machine.  The windows 8 machine finds the printer on the XP machine, which is set up to be shared on the network.  I click to install it, it can’t find the driver through windows update, so I try again and try to install it manually, selecting Have Disk.  I point the windows 8 machine to the disk drive with the disk in it when prompted to do so, and it gives me a choice of printer drivers to install, including the P1009.  I select the P1009 and it says that the file cannot be found.

I have tried configuring the port manually using the \\computername\sharename format and just about everything I can think of for the past two days and I can’t get a result.  Has anyone had this problem and if so is there a solution?

Cheers.   

[jason2074]

so I try again and try to install it manually, selecting Have Disk.  I point the windows 8 machine to the disk drive with the disk in it when prompted to do so, and it gives me a choice of printer drivers to install, including the P1009.  I select the P1009 and it says that the file cannot be found.

What if you try to install the driver first from the CD or from the manufacturing support site first on your Windows 8 laptop, then if successful, manually Add Printer again?

[Feenix]

Hi, Jason 2074.

I have tried that to no avail.  I went on the HP site and the only downloadable driver is for windows 7 rather than 8, and it doesnt have the P1009 on it.  The P1009 is actually a P1006 in a different shell, so I tried that driver instead.  Still didnt work.  The annoying thing is, this has worked in the past - I dont know whether some windows 8 update from microsoft has done something.  It would surprise me as updates often seem to have unintended consequences, lol.

Cheers.   

[jason2074]

There is a Windows 8 driver for the particular HP printer model http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?cc=us&lc=en&product=3435684

[Feenix]

I have downloaded this and tried it to no avail.  Im beginning to think at this point that it maybe a deeper issue...

[Feenix]

OK.

Ive recovered the machine and the driver installed seamlessly.  However, its now saying the printer is in an error state, but that is a different issue which I will sort out myself.

My thanks to Jason 2074 for his suggestions.

Feenix

[Geek-9pm]

Just curious. Only a wild guess. It is an HP P1009. - Right?
Have you used another printer to see if other printers behave?
If another printer works, it may suggest there is an issue with how the printer interacts with Windows 8.1 and Windows XP.

EDIT: Both HP and MS offer Universal Print Drivers.  They claim this reduces the need for separate drivers of different OS and hardware.
Microsoft:  Universal Print Driver

The Microsoft Universal print driver (Unidrv) is also referred to as the v3 print driver. The topics in this section show how to add minidrivers to Unidrv to support different printer models.

Maybe that could help.