Be Excellent To Each Other

Ricoh aficio sp c240 is connected to "main pc" via usb
main pc is connected to lan switch
there are 4 pcs that were in there before I started that run a mix of xp and win7 that do work on that printer.
I have put 2 new machines in since then, both running win7 home 32bit and neither of them will speak to it.
all pcs are plugged into the same lan switch.
when I go into printer settings on te other pcs I notice the port is listed as virtual printer port usb001 or something like that.
The 2 new pcs dont have that virtual port listed when I go to printer settings.
I have installed the correct drivers from the ricoh site and tried the windows supplied drivers but although the pcs can see the printer and print to it (or so they claim) by using a standard tcp ip port the printer just gives an error report and the queue just sits there.
Ive dug around online and cant find much thats of any use, it is the same install of win7 on both the not working machines.

Any ideas? there is a lan socket on the back of the printer, is it worth plugging it into the switch? or will that mess up the printing for the other pcs that are running through "main pc"?

Network it. Install all printers via direct ip address. No need for any one pc to be on.

USB printing is a horrible mess. Not mention printer sharing in Windows. Direct ip: much neater

Ok I'll try that, how do I find the printers ip address? Is it the same as the router?

If you up the router address into a Web browser, there should be a list of connected devices

Most network printers also have a menu where you can set the ip too.

Also, most driver packages have a discovery tool, that will look for printers on your network.

Malc

Success! now the win7 pcs are communicating with it via lan and the xp machines are still using the virtual usb ports. I was worried there might be conflicts but apparently not so I'm leaving it as it is and stepping backwards slowly...

Thanks for the help Mr. Paz and malc, lifesavers!

De nada.