cannot connect to printer.

[yanng1]

hi everyone.  1st time trying to share a printer over the LAN.  the LAN is all of 2 computers in my home. 
the printer is connected to my deskop pc.  I used the options under windows XP control pannel to share the printer.
When I use the control pannel on my lap top to try and connect to the printer it does not appear in the list of printers found on the network.  Funny thing is, 2 printers which are not available do.  I recognize one of them labeled "grandma".  this computer used to belong to a friends grandmother. 
  So Chose "start" "run" "\\ipaddress" and there was my shared printer labelled "office".  I right clicked this icon, chose connect and recieved the message:

windows cannot connect to this printer.  either the printer name was spelled incorrectly or the specified printer has lost its connection to the network. 

I have double checked the status of my printer, on the desktop computer, it is shared.
someone please advise

[The Saviour]

Make sure the computer the printer is connected to does not have a firewall installed that is blocking the connection to the shared printer.

The installed Windows firewall is automatically configured to allow shared printers on a network.  Other firewalls may be blocking this connection.

Also...double-check the name of the shared computer you are trying to connect to by right clicking on that printer and selecting Properties and then the Sharing tab.  The printer name should be right there.

Connect to a printer on a network

[viking]

Security settings for that share?