Sometimes you are embarrassed to conntect Mac OS X Leopard with a Windows XP printserver. It should work the Mac plug-and-play way … but it isn’t. So here is the howto, so you don’t need to trouble your head about it.
Context:
In the first corner: A Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.3) machine
In the second corner: A Kyocera 2000D laser printer connected to a Windows XP printserver which is protected by password and username.
Problem:
Adding the printer via the standard Apple-way as a windows printer works – but printing does not work because it is not possible to authenticate against the printserver.
Solution:
You need to add the shared printer via the hidden “Advanced” printer feature in the Print & Fax preferences.
- Open “Print & Fax” in “System Preferences”
- Click “+” to add a new printer
- Control-click (or right-click) on the toolbar at the top of the window and select “Customize Toolbar…”
- Drag the “Advanced” icon to the toolbar and select “Done”
- Click on the “Advanced” icon … and be patient … after a moment or two, you can select “Windows” from the “Type” dropdown-menu
- Enter the SAMBA URL of the shared windows printer in the “URL” textfield:
smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@WINDOWSDOMAINNAME/PRINTSERVER/PRINTERSHARENAME or
smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@IPADDRESS/PRINTERSHARENAME
If the shared printer does not need a password, you can use smb://USERNAME@… - Fill out the other fields “Name” and “Location” as you prefer
- When printing the first time you will get prompted for your USERNAME and PASSWORD. Fill in your windows printserver username and password and enable the “Add this to your keychain” checkbox.
… it’s nearly plug-and-play 😉
THANK YOU!!
Indeed — why this procedure is so user-unfriendly and requires so much googling around is beyond me… But I’m glad your page finally came up with the right instructions.
Cheers 🙂
WOW am I glad i came across this. I have been searching and searching and nothing has worked or helped me. Got to this and BOOM instant working printer, thanks man
Thank you very much.
Great post
Before I found this post, I found five other “solutions” that did not work. This post was extremely helpful. I wish there were some way to float it to the top of every google search on this topic!! Thanks again.
Great to read, that the “HowTo” is usefull to all of you!
@David: There is a way to help others find useful postings … just use a social bookmarking service like digg, stumbleUpon, or tell the world by tweeting about it 😉 … this is why I included the social bookmarking links on every post to make it super-easy to use them.
Finally, the solution that I’ve been looking for. Thank you!!!!
$%^&*& Apple’s gotta be out of their mind – hiding and advanced button!!!! YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!!
didn’t work.. when I tried print test page the status is “stopped”. why?
Great to find out this Advanced Button.
Yet, for me, it still does not work.
It does not prompt for USERNAME and PASSWORD when I try to print for the first time.
I’m using Mac OS X 10.5.7, if that makes any differences.
It’s the same thing with the Finder and the “Shared” folder (which disappears at time too).
When I click on “Connecting as:”, nothing happens. I would expect a prompt, but nothing.
Any help on this?
Let me add that I get as a result, of course, on the printer queue:
Connection failed: NT_STATUS_CONNECTION_REFUSED
Thanks.
OK. It works now. On Windows XP Pro side, I had checked File and Printer Sharing, Windows Firewall was off but Norton Firewall was up. Turning it off, everything worked as advertised. With Windows Firewall up again, but with File and Printer Sharing option turned on, it worked fine. I will need to configure Norton properly now.
Same thing with the Finder and “Shared” folder, it works fine.
Great to hear that you managed it to connect those two worlds!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks!
I was connecting to aBrother HL 2030 attached to the usb port on a Promise NS4600 NAS (Print Server) it is now printing documents after a lot of searching for a solution. The windows printing tab seems to be completely useless. Great one about the ‘Advanced’ icon.
This is similar to Tiger’s method of connecting to network printers.
Thanks again!!
Thanks guy!!
Only downside is that your password is then stored as plain text in the /private/etc/cups/printers.conf file to which anyone can browse if they know the path. 8-(
Thanks dear and it worked perfectly.
Great thread however i have connected correctly (green light is on etc etc and able to bring up the print screen however when i press print, NOTHING PRINTS! not sure what i have done incorrectly but the green light is on etc etc. please help
connected to a shared Windows printer in an office with a server…
I did this, but I’m having the same problem…The print queue on the mac and the pc both say that the print job is complete, but nothing prints. Any other suggestions?
Thank you! I can confirm this works on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.8) printing via a Windows Server 2008 printing server. If the server is on a domain but your computer is not joined to it, you will need to type in DOMAIN\username in the username field in order for the authentication to work. Also if the authentication does not pop up when you try to print, open the Printer window and click on Resume job. That should force the Authentication window to appear.
Thanks…a new user of Mac like me can use these sharing very well.
Thank you very much!!
from OS X 10.6.8 to windows XP.
but it did not work for Lion (MAC OS X 10.7.3)
Do you have a solution??
Thanks.
So…this is probably an awful question,but how does one figure out the smb:// address of one’s printer? Totally lost.
Thanks!
Dear sir/ Madam
thanks, if you can be help me. now I having problem my printer network. I have two computer but I use difference Window and Mac.
On window I connect printer and can be printer. I sharing for Mac printed but can’t please you help thanks
In faith
somnang
I was able to get it working with Lion. I had to add the domain name\username when prompted to enter my password from the Mac. I was getting a connection refused error, no firewall and Symantec was disabled so I ran all updates on the Mac and rebooted. SUCCESS!