Shared Printer Problem - Driving me Crazy!

I have a Windows 2003 SBS Server on a 5 client network. All of the clients
are Windows XP Pro.

One of the clients has a HP Laserjet 3015 printer that is shared on the
network. Straight forward print sharing. My problem is that the server can
connect to the printer and print, however none of the clients can connect or
print to that printer.

If I try to add the printer to one of the clients with the add printer
wizard, I get an error message along the lines that the "cannot connect,
printer may have lost its connection to the server". This happens whether I
use the active directory browse or just the UNC path to the printer.
Printing from the server works fine, no issues.

The permissions on the shared printer say that everyone can use it. I have
turned off the XP firewall to see if that would help, so I can ping the
machine but still cannot connect to the printer.

I know Windows 2003 has a lot of more control over the network and I am
wondering if there is somethign going on in Windows 2003 that is preventing
me from printing to this printer. Also, the Laserjet 3015 is a USB printer,
and the port its connected to says DOT4 something or other - could that be
an issue?

Can anyone tell me where to start? None of my workstations can print at this
time. Help!

Thanks in advance

Joe

When clients browse the server (\\servername) do they see the printer
shares? Also when they search in AD, do these printer shares show up?

--
Todd J Heron, MCSE
Windows Server 2003/2000/NT; CCA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

THe printer is being shared on a client computer, not the server. But no,
when clients browse the client, they do not see anything.

The printer DOES show up in AD, but when you try to connect to it you get an
error message "Cannot conenct to printer, the printer may have lost
connection with the server"

Joe


"Todd J Heron" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> When clients browse the server (\\servername) do they see the printer
> shares? Also when they search in AD, do these printer shares show up?
>
> --
> Todd J Heron, MCSE
> Windows Server 2003/2000/NT; CCA
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.
>

I had the same problem.
My solution was to go into the printer properties on the client machine and
under ports, I had to uncheck the Enable bidirectional support box in order
for them to work.
Then this allowed me to print just fine but it added a new problem.
Being as the printer was seen from Active Directory, disabling the
bidirectional support on the client also disabled it on the server where the
printer is physically attached. When this happened, the printers status
monitor would pop up saying I had lost comms with the printer.
Normally I'd get rid off the status monitor but this is a color laser and
the status is nice for toner level checks!

What I ended up doing was telling 2k3 to NOT list the printer in the
directory but still keep it shared and then on each client I installed a
local copy of the driver and pointed it to \\servername\sharename and I also
had to still turn off bi-directional support on each client.

Has worked perfect for me ever since!

"Joe Williams" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> THe printer is being shared on a client computer, not the server. But no,
> when clients browse the client, they do not see anything.
>
> The printer DOES show up in AD, but when you try to connect to it you get
> an error message "Cannot conenct to printer, the printer may have lost
> connection with the server"
>
> Joe
>
>
> "Todd J Heron" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> When clients browse the server (\\servername) do they see the printer
>> shares? Also when they search in AD, do these printer shares show up?
>>
>> --
>> Todd J Heron, MCSE
>> Windows Server 2003/2000/NT; CCA
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no
>> rights.
>>
>
>