How to share a printer on windows 7, 8, or 10

If you have computers or mobile devices on your network that run an OS other than Windows 7, 8, or 10–or you just don’t want to use Homegroup for some reason–you can always use the sharing tools that have always been a part of Windows to share a printer with the network. Again, your first step is making sure the printer is connected to a PC and that you can print to it.

Click Start, type “devices and printers,” and then hit Enter or click the result.

 Right-click the printer you want to share with the network and then select “Printer properties”.

 The “Printer Properties” window shows you all kinds of things you can configure about the printer. For now, click the “Sharing” tab.

 You are informed that the printer will not be available when your computer sleeps or it is shut down. Also, if you are using password protected sharing, you are informed that only users on your network with a username and password for this computer can print to it. Credentials are a one-time thing you’ll have to enter the first time you connect another PC to the shared printer; you won’t have to do it each time you print. If you’d prefer, you can make sharing available to guests so that passwords aren’t necessary, but that setting will also apply to any files you have shared.

To proceed, enable the “Share this printer” option and, if you want, give the printer a friendlier name so that others on the network can more easily identify the printer.

The other option you can set here is whether you would like to render print jobs on client computers. If this setting is enabled, all the documents that will be printed are rendered on the computers where people are doing the printing. When this setting is disabled, the documents are rendered on the computer to which the printer is attached. If it’s a PC that someone uses actively, we recommend enabling this setting so that system performance is not impacted every time something gets printed.

When you’re done setting things up, go ahead and click “OK.”

 

 Now that you’ve shared the printer, other PCs on your network should be able to connect to it. So, you’re ready to move on to step two. 

Step Two: Connect to Your Printer from Any PC on the Network

Now that you’ve got your printer connected to the network using one of the above methods, it’s time to turn your attention to the second part of the process: connecting other PCs on the network to that printer. How you do that really just depends on whether you’re using Homegroup or not.

If your printer is connected directly to a network, or is shared from a PC without using Homegroup, you’ll have to do a little more work to connect to it from other PCs on the network. It’s still pretty straightforward, though. Click Start, type “devices and printers,” and then hit Enter or click the result.

 The Devices and Printers window shows a collection of devices on your PC. Click the “Add a printer” link to get started adding your network printer.

 Windows will perform a quick scan of your network for discoverable devices that are not yet installed on your PC and display them in the “Add a device” window. Chances are high that you’ll see your printer on the list, whether it’s directly connected to the network or shared from another PC. If you see the printer you’re looking for, then your job just got super easy. Click the printer you want to install. Windows will handle the installation, download drivers if needed, and ask you to provide a name for the printer. That’s all you have to do.

 Now click NEXT until the end, your work will be done, the restart your computer and you are allowed to print any document.