Can't find printer

[ajimndal]

My Epson RX620 printer is connected directly to my PC.  My laptop is wirelessly connected to the network.  When I had standard Verizon DSL through an Actiontec GT704WG Rev 4 router I was able to "find" the printer and print to it from my laptop.

Two weeks ago I had FIOS installed with a Westell 9100EM router.  Other than this nothing has changed physically.  Everything works find except now my laptop cannot find the printer to add it to my available printers.

I am running Vista on both computers.  I did have some problems a while back and had to have Vista reinstalled on the PC and had to set everything up again.  I used a service to do the install and reboot.  At first we had the same problem, but his boss told him it had something to do with Vista requiring some kind of "sign in" if I recall correctly.  Problem is, I don't remember and can't find anything along those lines.

Can anyone help with this, I'd really like to print from my laptop.

[jumpin68ny]

First off, can you print from your PC to the printer?

[ajimndal]

Sorry, I thought I had covered all the angles.  Yes, the printer works great from the PC and always has.  It is just a problem of getting the network to allow my laptop to find and connect to the printer, which by the way, just to clarify, is hard wired to the PC.

[jumpin68ny]

What version of windows are on both PC and Laptop?

The problem may be the printer port is defined to a device that changed with the new router.

You may want to delete the printer from the Laptop and re-add it.

If that makes you uncomfortable you can keep the printer but simply add a new printer selecting the printer located on the PC.  On the laptop you should be able to see the desktop (by Name) and then drill down to the printer in network places.

[jumpin68ny]

Sorry I do see you have Vista.

[ajimndal]

Yes, Vista on both.

When I open "Add a Printer" on my it only shows my laptop, nothing else.  It can print to One Note or Microsoft XPS, both of which are on board the laptop.  I can't even find the PC on my network when I do a network search.  In spite of this, my laptop is communicating well with the internet through a wireless connection to the the 9100em router, so it does frond the router, just nothing beyond.  I suspect something in the router setup.  The only thing I see that possibly could be the problem is the UPnP is disabled on both the PC and Laptop, but this really isn't a direct plug and play problem, so have not tried to change it and am not sure I know how.

[jumpin68ny]

Since you switched to FIOS did you install any new software?  Please let me know.

You can try the following:

On the pc:

Start

control panel

system

computer name

Jot down "FULL COMPUTER NAME" for example desktop

Jot down "WORKGROUP" for example workgroup

Now go to laptop and do the same thing.

Confirm both pc and laptop are in the same workgroup.  Let me know if this is the same.

Next on laptop run the following::

start

run

Next to open type: cmd

now grab the FULL COMPUTER NAME you wrote down from pc and in the black window type:

ping <computer-name> where computer name is the name from above: for example ping desktop

See if you get a response.

If you do great.  If you dont then try 

ping <FULL COMPUTER NAME>.<WORKGROUP> filling in the PC name from above. For example desktop.workgroup

If the first step works, i.e.  ping desktop 

then hit:

start

run

\\<COMPUTER NAME> for example \\desktop

If the second step works then \\<computer name.worksgroup  for example \\desktop.workgroup

See if it can find your PC.

If you do then you should be able to find the printer too.

Let me know the results.

[ajimndal]

ping from Jim-Laptop to Jim-pc resulted in 3 time out responses.

ping from Jim-Laptop.WORKGROU to Jim-Laptop brought response:  "Ping request could not find host Jim-PC.WORKGROUP.  Please check the name and try again.

pinf from Jim-PC back to Jim-Laptop resulted in 4 packets sent, 4 packets received, all at 1ms.

Sounds like we're on to something!

[ajimndal]

I found a setting in my McAfee that was blocking the "ping".  I can now ping from both directions, but still can't see the printer, which does work perfectly from the PC.  At this point I'm not sure if it is the wireless router, PC or McAfee that is blocking me and I don't know where to go from here.

[jumpin68ny]

Sorry for the delay but there were a few football games on last night and my Giants have won!!!!!

Anyway so where is the mcafee on, PC, laptop or both?  If you disable mcafee firewall can you see pc and laptop in network neighborhood?