My printer, a Lexmark X3550, will not print to my wireless laptop (works fine on the desktop). I have the printer connected via USB to my main desktop and have a Belkin wireless G router connecting to my computer and my laptop is networked configured and is able to pick up the Internet but can't print. My desktop's OS is XP and my laptop's Vista).
-- Jesse Deanda

There are a couple of ways that you can do this. The first involves setting up Workgroup computing for both computers. This will mean that the desktop will have to be turned on for the laptop to print to it. Just while you are setting things up, I would recommend disabling the built-in firewall on both the desktop and laptop. This will remove this as a variable that you may be fighting when trying to get the printing to work.

Put both computers into the same workgroup. This is a name that you can enter on both computers. Over the years, Microsoft has periodically changed the "default" name used, so it is best that you enter your own name just to be on the safe side so that you know what is being used. I would also suggest that you get the latest patches installed for both XP and Vista.

You will now need to "share" the printer on the desktop. This should be as simple as right clicking on the printer icon on the desktop and selecting the Sharing option. A default name will be offered by XP but you can enter the name of your choosing. Once you have this done, you should be able to go to the Vista laptop and install the printer there. You will select network and then give it \\Desktop_PC_Name\printer_name as the name of the printer replacing the PC name and printer name with the actual names of the computer and printer. You will need to download the XP drivers for the printer as these may be different from what XP may be using. Once you have things up and running, re-enable the software firewall on both computers and retest the printing. It may take some tweaking on both firewalls to get the printer traffic to pass without getting blocked.

Another option is to use a USB print server. This is a hardware device that the USB printer will directly connect to over a USB connection. Most of the USB print servers that I have seen or used will require that you install some type of software so that the computers will know how to talk to the printer. The plus here is that you don't have to have a particular computer turned on so that the other computer can print to it.