USB Printing problem solved! (Generic solution?)

macgebruiker · Jun 20, 2006

What Driver should I use?

I would start using the "Generic/postscript" driver.

ferr · Jun 21, 2006

[email protected] said:
I was just about to post that I'd found the solution to the printing problem (after spending many hours fighting to get a printer to work), but it looks like someone beat me to it!

If you look under Mac Help, there's a topic on Sharing your printer with Windows users. This is where they recommend using the installing the Bonjour Printer Wizard in Windows - I tried it and it worked beautifully. (Note: Bonjour uses the Generic/Postscript printer driver - apparently this is part of the key to getting the printer to work, as opposed to installing your own printer driver.) The help file also gives an alternative method of printer sharing using SMB/CFIS (I have no idea what that is), which also indicates that you need to use the Postscript printer driver to get the printer to work with Windows.

You can download Bonjour for Windows at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/bonjourforwindows103.html

Apparently this is not a problem with the Parallels software itself, but a standard Mac/Windows printer sharing thing (since Mac Help addresses it). I do agree that this should be in the Parallels documentation though, since that would save new users countless hours of frustration!

BTW, my printer is an HP Deskjet 5550. I could never get it working as a local printer in Parallels. I think at one time I did have it working as a network printer (after turning on Print Sharing on the Mac side), but then it stopped working (would say it was printing when it wasn't) and couldn't find the fix until I tried using Bonjour. Bonjour immediately fixed the problem!

My problem is that Bonjour for Win cannot install the generic postrscript driver since a message claims "not enough privileges to connect to the printer" (it is a HP PSC 1310 connected to the mac via usb). Any hints?

macgebruiker · Jun 21, 2006

ferr said:
My problem is that Bonjour for Win cannot install the generic postrscript driver since a message claims "not enough privileges to connect to the printer" (it is a HP PSC 1310 connected to the mac via usb). Any hints?

That error message comes from Windos????

AFAIK there is no such message possible using XP.

hen Bonjour.exe finds a printer on the network and you selct that in the next step it will suggest a driver, this is the point where you should select in the left window "Generic" and in the right window "Postscript".

ferr · Jun 21, 2006

macgebruiker said:
That error message comes from Windos????

AFAIK there is no such message possible using XP.

hen Bonjour.exe finds a printer on the network and you selct that in the next step it will suggest a driver, this is the point where you should select in the left window "Generic" and in the right window "Postscript".

Yes, after choosing Generic / Postscript I see a small window in which I see the copy of the driver to the system. After some seconds a message (from Win) says: "The access privileges to the computer are not enough to connect to the printer selected" (I am translating from the italian...)

macgebruiker · Jun 21, 2006

The account (in the Win system) doe sit have the permissions like a system administrator or is it limited to a user.

Try login (Win system) as system administrator.

ferr · Jun 21, 2006

macgebruiker said:
The account (in the Win system) doe sit have the permissions like a system administrator or is it limited to a user.

Try login (Win system) as system administrator.

I am the system administrator. Anyway I have realized that this problem is related only with the "Generic / postrscript" driver. Maybe I erased it some days ago when I was trying to print from Parallels...how to reinstall it?

Edd · Jun 22, 2006

Generic Driver worked great for the Epson Color STYLUS 880.

thanks for the thread!

Edd

bradyjfrey · Jun 22, 2006

We had a home office mac user, running windows 2000 under parallels that used the bonjour trick -- it worked beautifully for us except that it didn't print in color.

We got around this by instead of picking 'generic/postscript' we picked the MS color printing option about 3 levels down. The printer was an HP DeskJet 5440, and now it prints in color just perfectly... just an FYI if anyone actually thinks of sitting on support with HP to ask for a different install disk and gets stuck explaining what bonjour is

Regardless, thanks for the tip all!

ferr · Jun 23, 2006

I still have the problem: when launching Bonjour for Win, I receive a message "The access privileges to the computer are not enough to connect to the printer selected". So I cannot install the "generic / postscript" driver...

bradyjfrey · Jun 23, 2006

You receive that message just when you try to launch the application? If so, that sounds more like a Windows issue than the Bonjour app itself.

colourpixels · Jun 24, 2006

works...but not fantastic

Ok, perhaps I'm a glass 1/2 full kind of guy, but using the generic PS printer is only 1/2 a solution in my books. Using this does't let me set any of my printer specific features such as borderless printing, colormode and the like. Does anyone have any suggestions for a Canon IP5200 and getting access to all the printer features?

Thanks for any thoughts.

Cheers
Dale

bradyjfrey · Jun 24, 2006

We were successful adding a big ol' Canon 3220 with the 'have disk' option -- it took the driver. We tried that with some of the USB desktop models and it wasn't successful -- mostly because those installers were some of the typical 'self install' and couldn't just find the individual setup information file it wanted to just install the needed printer specifics. Have you given your model a shot?

Fisher · Jul 6, 2006

USB Printing problem

I've the USB printing problem and need help!

I did everything I could find here -- installed, reinstalled, and repaired Bonjour, selected the Generic/Postscript, and VM recognizes the printer both in the USB device list and in Windows XP.

Documents will not print in VM, In XP printer control access is denied even though I am the administrator. In Mac, with VM running, I'm able to delete the print jobs but not start them. When VM is not running I am able to start the print job on the Mac but it prints a solid black line instead of text.

What am I doing wrong? Suggestions?

Fisher

joem · Jul 6, 2006

Fisher said:
I've the USB printing problem and need help!

I did everything I could find here -- installed, reinstalled, and repaired Bonjour, selected the Generic/Postscript, and VM recognizes the printer both in the USB device list and in Windows XP.

Documents will not print in VM, In XP printer control access is denied even though I am the administrator. In Mac, with VM running, I'm able to delete the print jobs but not start them. When VM is not running I am able to start the print job on the Mac but it prints a solid black line instead of text.

What am I doing wrong? Suggestions?

Fisher

Set the printer up as an OSX printer and make sure it works in OSX. Share the printer in OSX. Set up networking in the VM and connect to the printer over the network.

Fisher · Jul 7, 2006

joem said:
Set the printer up as an OSX printer and make sure it works in OSX. Share the printer in OSX. Set up networking in the VM and connect to the printer over the network.

Thanks for the reply, although I'm still stymied. The printer works in OSX, and the share is set up in OSX. In VM the network setup asks for the URL or the type of printer. I tried a lot of combinations and nothing worked. Now what?

joem · Jul 7, 2006

Fisher said:
Thanks for the reply, although I'm still stymied. The printer works in OSX, and the share is set up in OSX. In VM the network setup asks for the URL or the type of printer. I tried a lot of combinations and nothing worked. Now what?

I'm not in a position to try this since all my printers are on other machines (which work fine from the guest) but others have reported that installing Bonjour for Windows (obtainable from the apple site) makes connecting to printers easier.

macgebruiker · Jul 8, 2006

Fisher said:
Thanks for the reply, although I'm still stymied. The printer works in OSX, and the share is set up in OSX. In VM the network setup asks for the URL or the type of printer. I tried a lot of combinations and nothing worked. Now what?

I never got it to work using the network setup either.

Only way I got it to work was using Bonjour.exe, selecting generic/postscript (no matter what real printer was).

Fisher · Jul 9, 2006

macgebruiker said:
I never got it to work using the network setup either.

Only way I got it to work was using Bonjour.exe, selecting generic/postscript (no matter what real printer was).

OK now I'm focusing on Bonjour and I'm still having problems. The Bonjour wizard found the printer and I did the setup with the generic/postscript driver. The printer is listed in the XP printer control section but it is not connected (not reading "ready" and there is a wierd symbol underneath). It's also not listed in Explorer, although Explorer will open the printer's web page.

is this a network connection problem or something else? Any suggestions?

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

marct · Jul 13, 2006

I am having a similar problem. I can see the printer in my printers folder and when I open the printer nothing happens. I used bonjour and generic printer setup. It seems to install ok and it is in my printer list but that is about it. Any suggestions?

javester · Jul 17, 2006

SupaPDF Lite as a printing workaround

Here's another suggestion to overcome printing problems. Just install SupaPDF Lite (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/supapdflite.html or http://www.mactelchat.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=13 for more info).

Just print from to the SupaPDF shared printer and print the generated PDF from OS X.

As an added bonus, this not only works with Windows, but also, with Linux and Solaris in Parallels.

Lastly, it has optional Growl notifications and Folder Actions that work elegantly even when you're running your VM fullscreen.