Trying to print from W7 to printer connected to iMac...

I have read MANY pages so far on this topic, and MOST of what I have read is concerning printing from a Mac TO a printer connected to a WINDOWS 7 machine. I have the opposite problem.

My problem is that my wife's laptop (and mine as well) are both Windows 7 machines, and we would love to be able to "share" the printer that is connected USB to our iMac. (S.L. 10.6.4 - the "primary" desk machine) I would like to know how I can make the W7 PC's see the printer connected to the iMac. I won't beat around the bush, I'll tell you, pretty much what I have done THUS far...:

1) Yes, I turned "Printer Sharing - On" in the iMac Sharing Services.

2) Tried manually inputing into the iMac the W7's "workgroup" name, and tried to share via that method = Fail.

3) Downloaded Bonjour, ran it on my W7 laptop, which said that it found the printer (and it "did", as it's now listed in W7's "Devices and Printers") and when I try to print from anything, it "starts" the print job, acts like it's printing, then the W7 print icon in the tray disappears, like it's "finished printing", but the printer just sat there like a bump on a log. I even restarted the W7 laptop to see if that's what it needed, and still....Fail.

What am I not doing? Is there something I'm missing? I will mention again, that the printer is connected to the iMac USB, AND the iMac is connected HARDWIRE to my router for Ethernet. The Windows 7 laptops are purely wireless. How can I make this work? My wife mainly needs this for school, as she does a lot of work for school on her laptop.

Help!!!

I posted this in another category, and then later realized this may be a better place as it seems to fit more of my issue.

I have read MANY pages and other sites so far on this topic, and MOST of what I have read is concerning printing from a Mac TO a printer connected to a WINDOWS 7 machine. I have the opposite problem.

My problem is that my wife's laptop (and mine as well) are both Windows 7 machines, and we would love to be able to "share" the printer that is connected USB to our iMac. (S.L. 10.6.4 - the "primary" desk machine) I would like to know how I can make the W7 PC's see the printer connected to the iMac. I won't beat around the bush, I'll tell you, pretty much what I have done THUS far...:

1) Yes, I turned "Printer Sharing - On" in the iMac Sharing Services.

2) Tried manually inputing into the iMac the W7's "workgroup" name, and tried to share via that method = Fail.

3) Downloaded Bonjour, ran it on my W7 laptop, which said that it found the printer (and it "did", as it's now listed in W7's "Devices and Printers") and when I try to print from anything, it "starts" the print job, acts like it's printing, then the W7 print icon in the tray disappears, like it's "finished printing", but the printer just sat there like a bump on a log. I even restarted the W7 laptop to see if that's what it needed, and still....Fail.

What am I not doing? Is there something I'm missing? I will mention again, that the printer is connected to the iMac USB, AND the iMac is connected HARDWIRE to my router for Ethernet. The Windows 7 laptops are purely wireless. How can I make this work? My wife mainly needs this for school, as she does a lot of work for school on her laptop.

Help!!!

My apologies...I wasn't sure how the list worked, and again wasn't sure which category to put it under.

Will make sure before I post again!

My problem is that my wife's laptop (and mine as well) are both Windows 7 machines

Click to expand...

Yeah pretty much

I got some of the way there - but I ran into driver problems. On the windows 7 machine I had bonjour installed and it didn't find anything. I selected the middle - add printer by server name. I browsed to my Mac and found the printer.

Also on the Mac I had printer sharing on - and I had a printer selected as shared. Once I browsed that showed up right away. I did need to authenticate even though I have the same username/password combo.

We should back up also - It seems you can see the Mac - are you able to get file sharing to work? If not then you might be having a username/password problem. If so - then it may be something like the driver.