Windows 7 how to connect to wireless printer

Jimbo22

Windows Forum Team
Staff member
I'm trying to connect my laptop to my works wireless printer to print some word documents. I can't get it to connect.
 
Hey Jim. What's you got as far as a network connection. Do you know the IP address of the printer? Have you tried to create a new TCP/IP Port? Is it truly a network printer or is it attached to another computer and shared? Do you have a windows 7 driver already downloaded? Some times if you download the full featured driver packages they include a network utility that will go out and search the network for you. Do you suspect that Windows 7 already has suitable native drivers for your particular printer?
A little help with the lay of the land would help?
Keep us posted
Randy
 
The printer is an HP J6400 series printer with built in wireless (blue-tooth). It setup on the main office computer network. No I don't have any of the particulars...IP address, no to TCP/IP port. I don't know it the printer is setup to be shared or not. I downloaded the pre-installed drivers from windows 7. I haven't tried the full featured driver package yet.


I was checking all the parameters on my laptop before I checked with the work printer/share setup on main office computer. I'll check it out next time I'm at work on Friday.

Thanks Randy....will keep you posted...

PS...
I thought this wireless printing was supposed to be easier to set up and deal with...I might as well just connect to the office network and print that way. That's how I have it set up for my home network. All 3 laptops print effortlessly on the wireless router with out the printer having built in wireless...
 
If it's a wireless printer (and I guess it will actually be ethernet wireless rather than bluetooth) then accessing via its ip address (and therefore via the office ethernet network) is the way to do it - far better than and easier that using printer sharing (which rather defeats all the advantages of having an ethernet enabled printer in the first place).
 
You know....I never thought of it like that...ethernet wireless. You're probably right as well with network connection. So the next inevitable question is; why even have the bluetooth on these printers.
 
Yes - many people refer to just the wired connection as Ethernet and wireless as somethng different but in fact wifi is also part of the Ethernet family - using the 802.11x protocol so the term ethernet applies both to to wired and wireless connections. Bluetooth is mainly for short range data transfers - like a small file to be transferred from the pc to maybe a storage card in the printer. Blue tooth is not appropriate for transfer of print data.
 
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