A friend has 2 PCs in her office which share the Workgroup, 'Office' and attached to one PC is an HP Laserjet 1320 printer. Both PCs run XP SP3. She recently bought a laptop running W7 HP 64-bit and wanted to share files and folders with the other PCs and be able to print to the Laserjet. I changed the Workgroup on her laptop to 'Office' and gave all the necessary permissions and file and folder sharing works fine. BUT when I tried to add the printer as a network printer the wizard found it OK, but after searching Windows Update it couldn't find a driver. I connected the Laserjet (USB) to the laptop directly and it immediately downloaded and installed the printer perfectly. So I tried installing it as a network printer again after reconnecting it to the PC but got the same problem. I noticed that W7 had installed it locally as Laserjet 1320 PCL 5, whereas when it tried to install it as a network printer it complained that there was no driver for 1320 PCL 6. Anyway, I backed up the installed driver and tried again, and when it failed to find the driver it wanted I pointed it to the backed up driver. It then gave me an 0x00000214 cannot connect to printer error. I disabled firewalls anti-virus - no change. I downloaded and installed the 64-bit PCL 6 drivers from HP , but STILL it went off and searched Windows Update rather than use the installed drivers. Help!

Forget the wizard.Browse to the XP with the shared printer.Highlite the printer, right click, click connect.give a few mins to do it's thing.If it asks for printers point to them.When done check to see that it is installed and working.

I tried that, but still get 'Cannot connect'. I cannpt understand why W7 on the laptop disappears into Windows Update to look for a driver when I try to connect to the Laserjet on the network when it has already installed it on the laptop to print locally.

Hi, Please refer to the suggestions from the following article: Network Printer Problems If there is any error message, please upload it Thanks, Novak

OK, I eventually found a workaround. Install the printer locally on the laptop USING the MANUFACTURERS latest drivers - do NOT let Windows use its own drivers - they don't work. Then re-connect the printer to the PC and on the laptop right-click on the installed printer and choose Printer Properties.. Choose Ports -> Add Port and then Local Port (why I have no idea) and then New Port - enter network name of the printer i.e. \\host_computer_name\printer_share_name. That works.

OK, I eventually found a workaround.Install the printer locally on the laptop USING the MANUFACTURERS latest drivers - do NOT let Windows use its own drivers - they don't work. Then re-connect the printer to the PC and on the laptop right-click on the installed printer and choose Printer Properties..Choose Ports -> Add Port and then Local Port (why I have no idea) and then New Port - enter network name of the printer i.e.\\host_computer_name\printer_share_name.That works. Hum, sounds a nice idea, but:My printer (a HP Deskjet 1300) doesnt have native drivers (From CD) to Windows 7, when i download the Win7 drivers from HP Website and run the Install.exe, i got in return something like 'Just use this if your print isn't USB. Windows recognize any printers from USB and auto Install it'Turning impossible to dont use the Windows Drivers.I Also tried adding a new Port, but it has add as a Local port, doesnt worked to the Shared Printer on the network

This is month's later but Apollo 911's solution worked for me - I am using HP OfficeJet K80 on Windows 7, shared from an XP machine. The Add Port/Local Port worked (using \\HOST_MACHINE_NAME\Printer_Share_Name). Note, there is also a TCP/IP Port Type option - this didn't work - select the Local Port option as appllo911 rcommends. Thanks for saving me more time beating my head against the wall !