Connecting a desktop PC to a wireless printer

R

radeon962

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 13, 2008
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Ran into a problem last night setting up a HP OfficeJet Pro 6968 at home:

My home network consists of:

Windows 7

Charter Internet through a Motorola modem (don't recall the model but can get that later if germane to the issue).

ASUS T-Mobile Personal Cellspot (which is a rebranded RT-AC68u)

My two primary systems are:

Intel NUC that is connected to the router via Ethernet and also has built in wifi

Home built system (desktop) connected to the router via Ethernet with no wifi

Printer was setup with wireless. Works flawlessly with the NUC, every laptop (including Windows based and Mac) in the house and even my iPhone.

I cannot get the desktop PC to print anything other than a test page using the HP Print and Scan Doctor utility. Why that works I don't know.

A normal test page print from the printer properties fails and the wizard can't fix the issue.

I do have a Homegroup set up for sharing and all that looks fine as the PC can see the printer, it shows up on the network map, etc.

Is it as simple as just buying a USB wifi dongle and throwing that in the desktop PC so that it is essentially setup like the NUC?

Seems that the PC connected to the router should take care of the wireless for me but no go.

I did try setting the printer up on the PC with Windows firewall on and off and no change.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Bill
 
There will be no difference, in terms of being able to access the printer, between being connected to your network via WiFi or wired Ethernet. It doesn't matter if some devices connect via WiFi and others via Ethernet, it's still all the same network.

What printer drivers have you tried? Are you using the latest directly from the HP website, or drivers that windows installed?
 
GotNoRice said:
There will be no difference, in terms of being able to access the printer, between being connected to your network via WiFi or wired Ethernet. It doesn't matter if some devices connect via WiFi and others via Ethernet, it's still all the same network.

What printer drivers have you tried? Are you using the latest directly from the HP website, or drivers that windows installed?
Click to expand...

Direct from HP.

Printer works on every other device over wireless in the house which includes the NUC, one MacBook, 4 laptops and 6 iPhones. No issue printing from anything other than the desktop PC.

Homegroup appears to be fine as I can copy files back and forth between the NUC and PC.
 
If I read your post correctly, every device that has native wireless prints fine. Only the wired only PC doesn't.

Since the NUC can print successfully, might try setting the printer up on the NUC as a shared printer and connect the PC to the printer share. Of course, this requires the NUC to be on anytime the PC needs to print. Zero cost solution.

Or connect the printer via wire to the network.
 
That is the solution I hope to avoid as it is how I had my previous setup. I know that works but am hoping to a avoid a hard connection.

I'm going to give it another go this weekend.

The NUC is hard wired to the router as well but does have a wireless connection native to it that is active based on the wireless icon in the task at and both wired and wireless show up in settings.
 
Apparently it is an issue with Windows 7 and HP printers.

The fix is to change your User Account Settings:

Control Panel > User Accounts > Change User Account Settings

Drag the slider down to never notify, then restart the computer

Everything prints now.
 
This is not mine, I found it on one of HP's boards:

Actually it is due to moving the location of your user "TEMP" file from Microsoft's default. (Which I did as I have an SSD for my C: drive for OS and Programs and a mechanical HDD for my D: drive for DATA. I only did this on my main machine as it gets a lot of use and wanted to keep the SSD clean while DATA could accumulate on the D drive).

Find your USER "TEMP" directory (by default is %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp, but if you moved it, then wherever you moved it to), and make sure the user account you're logged in with is explicitly assigned to the NTFS security on the TEMP folder with Full Control permissions. Even if the user account you're logging in with is a member of the administrators group or any other group that has full control on the directory, make sure the user account is explicity assigned in addition. Do not rely on the group permissions.

Apparently, by using the inherited rights through the group permissions, that's what triggers and requires the UAC elevation. By adding the user explicitly to the folder permissions, the user account then has inherent full permissions without needing to inherit them through group membership, and this then bypasses the need for UAC elevation.

How did I discover this? ...

On my PC, I redirect the TEMP directory from the Microsoft default, to an alternate location, D:\TEMP, to get it off of my system drive.

I had read earlier in this thread, and in another thread, about checking permissions on the Temp folder, but those posts suggested granting the Everyone group full permissions on Temp. I tried that and it did not work. But it did give me the hint that my problem might be related to the Temp directory.

I created a new local account on my PC and logged in with that. The printer actually printed fine. Of course, when I created and logged in as the new account, it started out with the default MS Temp dir location under its own user profile directory.

I then changed the TEMP and TMP environment variables in the new user account to also point to my D:\TEMP location. Guess what? The printer then failed to print. I then changed the TEMP and TMP variables in my new account back to point the MS default Temp directory under the user profile. The printer printed again! AH HA, indeed related to the Temp directory.

So then I checked permissions on the new Temp directory under my new user account profile, vs. the permissions I had on my alternate D:\TEMP directory. Both had Administrators and System assigned with Full Control. The only difference was that the Temp directory under the user profile had that user explicitly assigned to it with Full Control, and my D:\TEMP directory did not have any users assigned directly to it, only the Administrators and System groups.

SO, I added the new test account explicitly to my D:\TEMP directory permissions with Full Control. Then I changed the TEMP and TMP environment variables in my test account back to D:\TEMP, and viola, the printer still printed!

SOOOO, then I added my original account explicitly to the D:\TEMP permissions with Full Control. I logged out of the test account and back in as my orginal accound, and again, viola, the printer printed without having to do the UAC elevation!

Again though, I have no idea why the original config (without explicit user permissions on D:\TEMP) worked for all other printers I've ever had and only just failed with this new M477fdn printer driver. But it's working now!

Since my original post above about adding the user account itself directly, I've discovered that it also works by granting the Users group Full Control to the Temp directory, instead of the user account itself.
 
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