Question : Problem: MacBook - Newbie: Need help on printing to XP shared printer

MacBook - Newbie: Need help on printing to XP shared printer

Bear with me please. I read tons of articles on this but somehow as a newbie to MAC (girlfriends sick daughter w Cancer), I am missing something. 10.5.2

Currently, I set the MACBOOK up so she can print directly if we plug in the HP Deskjet 5490 printer directly via USB to the MACBook. No problem.

When we first got the MACBOOK I tried setting up the MACBOOK wirelessly to recognize the workgroup where the printer was attached via USB to the Windows XP PC. However it printed out garbage since I did not know there was a difference between XP printing and MAC (Gutenberg/gimp printing/drivers).

I now know there is a difference after reading a little.

But in reading various instructions I Googled, I no longer can find how to connect the MAC to the Windows workgroup. Note we do have a printer set up currently as USB-HP Deskjet on the Macbook (not sure I need to delete it yet).

I went to System Preferences on MACBOOK and clicked on printers, more printers. In the drop down box was CANON, APPLETALK, IP HP printing and Firewire. There was no WINDOWS selection as I saw in other online web instructions.

So not sure how to proceed to
1. Connect to workgroup (click on what exactly), step by step please!!
2. Add correct printer



Thanks so much in advance.
Sincerely
Peter

Answer : Problem: MacBook - Newbie: Need help on printing to XP shared printer

To join/check the Windows Workgroup
-------------------------------------------------
You should make sure your Windows and Mac workgroups are in sync:

In Windows (XP Professional), go to Control Panel->System (classic view), go to the Computer Name tab, then click on 'Change...'. There you can (re-)set or check the computer name and Workgroup.

NOTE: Make sure the workgroup name does NOT contain spaces and is not longer than 15 characters. It also can not be one of your computers name or a wireless network id (SSID).
After this change the PC has to be restarted.

On a Mac, go to System Preferences->Network, then click on the 'Advanced...' button, go to the WINS tab, there you can set the workgroup name.
(You can also set the computer name here, but if you do, you should change it in System Preferences->Sharing too, just to make sure you don't run into any problems later.)

Ok, most things work from now. If however you want to make absolutely sure all works fine, you can add the XP computer names in your hosts file.

WARNING! The following will not work if you are using DHCP automatic IP addresses!

In Finder go to the /etc/ folder, then right-click on the file called hosts, then click 'Get Info', then open the 'Sharing & Permissions' part. From there you can add your own account (or the Administrators group) and set Privilege to 'Read & Write'.
You might have to unlock this panel, to do so click on the padlock in the right hand corner.
From there you can open the hosts file with your favorite text editor and add your HOST information in the format of {IP Address}{tab}{host name} (f.i. 192.168.1.10 winxp) and save the file.