Suggestions and network printer problems

[savagegerbil]

Hey, I actually have two questions. One is actually a call for suggestions on upgrading/adding to my network. Here goes....

I have my home network based on a client/server running with win 2k server. It's run on a p3/450 with 256 meg ram. I use it for a proxy/print/file server as well. It is connected with a cable line and two nics. The nics in my whole network is 10/100 but the hub is 10baseT (I am going to upgrade to 10/100 soon) Below is a diagram (Sorta) of the network...

Internet
|
|
Server-------+--------+
| Hp 712 Lexmark x73
|
Hub-----+------+-----+----+
| | | | |
P2/266 | | | |
(win 98)| | | |
Laptop | | |
p/166 | | |
(Win98) | | |
| | |
P4/1.8 | |
(win 2k) | |
P4/1.6 |
(win XP) |
Cel/300
(win NT)

I plan on putting a dial up connection into my server.

Anyhow, the second question is the two printers I have connected work, but only on the computer it's connected to and on mine (the p4/1.8) I figured it was because they were both win 2k. I was able to get it to print test pages from the p4/1.6 but now it wont print anything. and I cant even get it to print a test page from the win 98 box. I have installed the correct drivers, shared out the printers and set appropriate permissions. I cant think of anything that could be wrong but I cannot get em to work.

Ah, frustrations. Owell, thanks for the help.

[Gameguru]

I had a very similar problem at work and I went around for days trying to get a Win98 computer to print from a printer connected and shared out of a Win2K machine.

This may sound crazy, but as I recall, I had to install win98 drivers on the host(Win2K) machine as well as the Win2K drivers to get it to work. Its been a while since I did this so I'm not sure of the details. This could be just a wild goose chase for you and its likely that I actually *fixed* it some other way than what I just described.

At least it will give you something to try.

[homeostasis81]

Gameguru is on the right track to the printing problem. Windows 2000 and 98 use different printer drivers for the same printer. When you connect to a network printer the computer requests the printer drivers from the print server. If the computer is running the same OS this is done without a problem however if there are two different OSs then there is more to it. If the print server is running win2k than under the sharing tab of the printers properties there should be an option to install drivers for different OSs. If the print server is running win98 than try to install the win2k drivers on the win2k machine. Its more of a pain to do it with the printer being win98 but you should be able to do it without too much of a headache.