How to Find a Printer Driver Download For Network Printers on Windows 7

For anyone using Windows 7, finding the right printer driver download is an automated process requiring little work on the user's part. Following are the instructions to install a printer on different computers on a home network.

Using Windows 7 Automated Printer Setup
One of my favorite features on Windows 7 is the automated printer setup. Our home has all the computers networked together and we share one printer. We were actually dreaded redoing all the printer hookups, but Windows 7 made it easy.

• The first step is actually turning on the printer and connecting it to a computer. Windows 7 will automatically add it to the first computer. Follow the rest of the steps to add it to other computers on the network.

• Next, click "Start" and open the "Devices and Printers." Give it a minute, because it will search through everything to find all your devices and installed printers. It will pull up a few things, but you can ignore them.

• At the top, you will see "Add a device" and "Add a printer". Click "Add a printer" to open up a new window. This too will take a minute or so.

• Click the second option, "Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer" and click the "Next" button. Give it a minute while it searches for printers on the network.

• Select the printer and click Next. The printer will be named something like EPSON Stylus NX4000 on Joe-PC

• Follow the onscreen instructions to install all the drivers for the printer.

Using the Printer CD for Network Printers
Sometimes, Windows does not locate the driver. If this happens, you will need the printer CD. While running the printer CD does not work on older versions of Windows, it will work for network printers on Windows 7.

You should be able to place the CD in the CD drive and it automatically run. If not, then click My Computer and double click the CD drive. At that point, you should see a file title autorun.exe or setup.exe. Click one of these and the CD will automatically install the printer.

Updating the Printer Drivers
On occasion, you will be required to update your printer drivers. The only easy way to do this is with driver update software. Otherwise, you have to search for, download and install the new drivers manually.

Manual installation starts by going to the printer manufacturer's website. Once on the site, look for a page titled "Support" or "Downloads". When you find the page, you will need to look for your exact printer model.

Then you will need to download the latest drivers to your desktop. When the download is complete, go to Device Manager and locate the printer drivers. Right click the printer and select "Update Drivers." Then follow the onscreen instructions to finish the installation.

Driver update software is much easier. It will find the printer driver for you and install it automatically in less than two minutes.

DriverBoost is guaranteed to find the latest printer driver download and most up-to-date driver for each and every device driver on your system.

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Installing a Network Printer on Windows XP Vista 2003-2008

I know this is a lot of information to read and understand. Think of it as an investment and not a burden. I have tried to include what is necessary without writing a whole book about a 5 minute procedure.

Summary of steps to install a network printer.

1. Download the most recent driver from the manufacturer's website.

2. Configure network settings on the printer.

3. Use the Add Printer Wizard to create a local network printer on the pc.

4. (Optional) - share printer to other users.

If you are performing this type of installation for more than a handful of people, it is best to install this once on a Windows Server and share that printer to everyone. Normally it takes between 5 and 10 minutes to perform this type of install on each pc.

1. Download the most recent driver.

Visit the manufacturer's website to obtain the latest driver - print drivers can be found in the support area searching by model number.

( this is important because early problems are fixed and drivers are updated )

For color printers you want to download a PostScript driver.

Black and White - monochrome printers work fine with a PCL driver.

*Run-Unzip-Extract* to a known location on the computer -

c:temp -or- c:*printer model*

2. Configure network settings on the printer

If you are a small business or an at home office you probably have a tiny router that handles what is called DHCP ( this is a service that manages IP addresses ).

The bad thing about these little devices is when they lose power, IP addresses are re-assigned on a first come basis.

I suggest using a static IP for all installations. Log into your printers web interface using the DHCP assigned IP address and change it to a static IP high in the range.

If available, I use 192.168.1.201, since most routers start assigning IPs at 192.168.1.2

If you have IT people who control your network, they should be consulted before making any changes to IP settings.

3. Using the Add Printer wizard

Go to Printers in the Control Panel - there are different ways to get there - just find one

Click the Add a Printer link

Choose - Add a local printer

**Note** - I know you have a network printer and the second choice is network printer and it makes logical sense to choose that - but you have to trust me and not think for yourself on this one.

Choose to Create a new port - select Standard TCP/IP Port in the dropdown list

Fill in the information - IP address you chose to use

If it detects the device type - great - if it doesn't - click OK and Next anyway

( leave it generic or whatever it says )

Next is where we browse to the location you Extracted-unzipped the drivers ( this could also be to the CD you have ). Most of time when you download drivers they are in exe form or zipped and have to be Run and extracted before becoming available for use

Install the printer driver

Click Have Disk

Click Browse

Navigate to the location containing an INF file within the driver directory you created

Double-click the inf file or select it and click Open

Then click the OK button

Select your model and click Next

If it asks you to keep or replace the driver ( make a choice )

Then you will be asked to name the printer - On a server install it is best to make this a general term like - Office Color - or - Department BW.

Then you will be asked to Share the printer ( this is the Optional part for Server installs )

Just click Finish and the driver will be installed

4. Optional sharing the printer

Right-click the printer in Printers and Faxes and select Properties

click on the Sharing tab and choose to share and give it a share name

**Note**

The Network Printer option I told you to ignore earlier is for connecting to shared printers. The fast way to install a *shared* printer is to:

Click Start and select Run ( if you do not have a run just type the UNC name into an address bar )

Here is a link describing what UNC is http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/UNC.html

Type in the UNC name of the PC with the shared printer

Click OK

You will be presented with share folders and printers

Double-click the printer to install

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Troubleshooting

1. Some printers need to have the port configured for a different RAW number or with LPR settings

The documentation or support site should cover what special settings are required.

Sometimes the default 9100 needs to be changed to another number, but usually it is an LPR port with a queue name of LPT1 - PORT1 - PS - AUTO - or lp, the LPR Byte Counting is sometimes necessary also.

You can configure these settings by going to the Properties of the printer

Select the Ports tab and click the Configure Port button.

2. The format of the IP address is important - do not use any leading zeroes that you may see on a config page or web screen

i.e. 192.168.001.201 should be programmed into the port as 192.168.1.201

3. IP addresses are important - normally on small networks 192.168.0. networks cannot print to 192.168.1 addresses - If your router changes its settings are has to be reconfigured, be sure to double check that you are an the same *Network ID* (first three sets of numbers), I have seen routers change back and forth between networks and different brands use different defaults.

4. Sometimes the ports on servers and workstations become corrupted and need to be deleted and recreated.

5. Sometimes you might have a *Network Security* application that blocks communication to a new printer - watch for popups when attempting your first print.

Final Thoughts

If you read all the way to here, you probably need more help.

Please visit the Do-it-yourself IT Answers blog for more articles of this type including helpful photos

http://diyitanswers.blogspot.com/

Because everyone needs help sometime

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Wireless Networking - How to Share a Printer in Windows

After you have established your new wireless network, you have to determine whether or not you are going to share resources among users. One of the most commonly shared peripheral devices is a printer. Sharing a printer across a wireless network is very easy to do.

In this example, we are going to go through the steps about how to share a printer that already exists and is attached to one of the users' computers. Sharing a printer through a print server and how to set one up is covered in a separate article.

It does not matter how many users share a printer. And it does not matter how many printers you want to share. In this example, we are going to share a single computer.

First, you need to set up printer sharing on the computer to which the computer is attached. This is accomplished by first going to the Control Panel and opening up the folder for Printers and Faxes. Right click the printer icon. Choose Properties. One of the tabs at the top of the menu box is labeled Sharing. Select this tab.

Click on the Share this Printer radio button. You are prompted to enter the name of the printer. Enter the name you want to identify the shared printer as across the network.

If you have different operating systems on you network, you will need to provide those by clicking on the Additional Drivers button. This assumes everyone is using Windows XP. As long as you have the device driver disc that came with the printer, installing different drivers for different operating systems is easily accomplished by providing the name of each operating system and loading these drivers. When loading this shared printer on the other machines, the drivers will be provided from the shared printer computer as necessary for each different OS.

From each remote computer, you begin the installation of the shared printer by opening Control Panel and clicking on Printers and Faxes. Click on Add a Printer. The Add a Printer Wizard begins the installation process. You can have the wizard browse your network for the printer or you can enter the exact shared printer name. Both work but I recommend you let the wizard browse for the printer. When it locates the printer's host computer and the printer is not displayed, be sure to click on the '+' icon to expand the attached network devices so that the printer is shown.

Upon completion of the installation process, you are given the choice to print a test page. I recommend you always do this. This is the time to find out if there is a problem, not when you have a report or bank statement you have to print to get to a meeting!

If this is the only shared printer on the network, I recommend that all users that will use this printer as their primary printer go to the Control Panel, click on Printers and Faxes, then right-click on the shared printer icon and then select Set as Printer Default. This way, any time you choose to print a document, it will be sent to this printer by default. If the computer that hosts the printer or the printer is not powered on, then you will be notified that the resource is unavailable. If you take no further action, the print request will be completed the next time you are able to connect to the printer.

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