# Solved: can't access network printer with my Windows 8 computer



## remarkrp

There is a shared printer on my wife's Windows 7 computer (HP7250). When both computers were XP, I had no trouble accessing them with all my accounts on my computer. 3 years ago I upgraded both computers to Windows 7. Same thing, no problem accessing the shared printer on all my accounts. Now I got a new Windows 8 computer and the only account that can access the shared printer is my admin account. Nothing has changed on the W7 box but I cannot access the printer with my W8 standard account, or my new "Microsoft" admin account. Only with my "local" admin account. I don't even see the printer in Control Panel/Printers and Devices, only in the local admin account. If I do a "net view \\HP7250\MP150" I can see the printer share on all my accounts. Therefore I can print on the shared printer only on my local admin account. Is this by design of W8 or am I missing something.


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## TerryNet

Maybe you need to install (connect to) the printer on the other two accounts?


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## remarkrp

I tried that and I can't. All I got was various (can't even remember them all) error messages, like "you are not authorized..." and "windows will not allow...", "can't find the printer specified", "network path not found". If I remember correctly, when I added the network printer on W7, it was available to all the accounts on my computer. I'm wondering if there's a new way to add a network printer in W8 and maybe I did it incorrectly? There certainly are more ways to do it than I've ever seen before and I'm having trouble understanding what some of the methods are trying to do. I've looked up quite a few sites on the internet that claim to tell how to do it but they all say do... and then follow the instructions on the screen. But when I follow the instructions on the screen, sooner or later I hit one of the aforementioned error messages and I'm dead. No printer.


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## DaveA

Do these other accounts have passwords on them?

If not, they should and then MAY work.


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## remarkrp

One of the accounts has a password, the other doesn't. Same on both computers. Never caused a problem in XP or 7. Now the problem just got worse. I took the password off my admin account on the Win 8 box and I can no longer access the network printer at all on this box. Maybe related to the password issue but the reason I took the password off is for convenience. I'm constantly switching back and forth because most of my stuff is on the "standard" id but I have to use the admin id to print. Also, several of the error message I've been getting seem to indicate that Windows 8 thinks that it's in a domain. It's not, and never has been, it's in a workgroup. My computers have always been in a workgroup since my NT and 98 days, through XP and Win 7. I need to find some documentation or some expert who knows Windows 8 intimately, particularly in the area of file and printer sharing and permissions. I think Windows 8 has some serious bugs in that area or is doing something really funky. OK, I'm going to put a password back on my admin id and see if that lets me print.


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## remarkrp

Update - put the password back on my admin id, now I can print again! Amazing! This also gave me back my access to the hard drive C share on my wife's computer. This access had gone away when I removed the password from my admin account. So I put a password on my standard account and now it too has access to the C share on my wife's computer but this account still cannot print. And my Microsoft account with admin privileges still cannot print nor has access to the C share. Never did and always had a password. So much now seems to be dependent on having a logon password and this was never the case with any past releases of Windows that I encountered.


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## DaveA

On all machines do you have the SAME Admin account and same password?


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## remarkrp

Yes, on XP and Win 7 I had the same two "standard" ids (my wife's and my own) with no password and the same admin id with the same password. These were the same two computers that came with XP and I later upgraded to Win 7. My Win 8 computer, with which I'm having all the problems is a brand new computer that came with Win 8 on it.


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## DaveA

Put passwords on these two standard accounts and see if that works


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## remarkrp

Thanks but I already tried that. Didn't work. I'm thinking of deleting the printer and starting over but I've had so much trouble with this I'm very apprehensive. All the instructions I've been able to find about how to add a network printer sound good, like what I remember from XP and 7, but on Windows 8, sooner or later I get 1 of about 4 or 5 different error messages and no printer.


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## remarkrp

Found suspicious stuff in the registry that had the name of my network printer but nothing that correlated with reality.
Logged onto my admin acct. that had the network printer and deleted it.
Built a new standard (not admin), local (not Microsoft), no-password account to do some experimenting in the registry.
Logged onto that account, went into File Explorer, clicked on and expanded "network". Clicked on and expanded HP7250 ( my wife's computer where the printer is locally attached via USB). Right clicked on the printer and saw "connect" in the pop-out window. Clicked on "connect" and got a message something like "...completing installation..."
Went into Control Panel/Devices and Printers, the printer now shows up. Right clicked and selected as default
Went into MS Word and was able to print to the network printer.
Logged onto the other 3 accounts on my computer and did the same steps. All accounts now able to print.
Is this nuts or what?!! I really hate Windows 8. Oh well, on the the next set of problems I'm having with Win 8
Thanks all for your suggestions and attempts to help.


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