I'm running Win 7 RC on a desktop which hosts the USB printer and on a laptop. Both machines are joined to the homegroup. Printer sharing is enabled. When I joined the laptop to the homegroup it discovered the printer on the desktop and even set it as the default printer when I am in the homegroup.I never tried using the printer until today. I can print to that printer but the job sits in the print queue on the laptop, never making it to the desktop. When I go into Devices and Printers on the laptop the printer shows up as Offline. But the printer is on and I can print to it from the desktop.I tried the homegroup troubleshooter and it offered nothing useful. File sharing is working just fine.I am at a loss now. I thought this homegroup stuff was going to make ti all simple. This isn't simple.

Is the print spooler process set to automatic and running?

If you mean the Print Spooler service then yes, on both the desktop and laptop t is set to AutoStart.

Does the printer appear offline on both computers?

No it works fine from the Desktop. In fact as a test I did this with both the Desktop and Laptop in the homegroup (remember the printer is physically attached to the Desktop):1) Submit a print job from the laptop.2) While it sat there doing nothing I submitted a print job from the Desktop.3) The job printed fine from the Desktop but nothing ever happened from the Laptop.

Can you restart print spooler on the laptop and see if that works?

I have rebooted the laptop a number of times to no effect. The original problem was a few weeks ago, I have not gone back and tried it again in at least a week. I just don't expect anything to change unless I find something specifically wrong since both machines involved have been rebooted a number of times.

If the problem were the service, rebooting the whole machine doesn't matter. I asked if you can restart the spooler.

I see, didn't catch the subtle difference. How do I restart just the spooler?

In services, click on print spooler, and then restart.

OK, I have no idea what changed but when I tried printing today it worked flawlessly.I am happy it worked but still bothered by the fact that it failed last time. Will it fail on me again? Who knows...Great feature but still not bulletproof.