Hi folks,

I'm a bit confused here, need to share a printer that is locally connected via USB to my win 2008r2 workstation with a Mac. Unfortunately there's no "share" tab. I've installed Printer Services role but it seems to insist on adding new printers and looking for them on the network, rather than sharing what it already has?!

Anyone know how to share the one printer I have?

Thanks!

I expect you 'll see the Share tab in Control Panel -> Hardware -> Devices and Printers -> [Your Printer] -> Customize your printer after you have installed the File Services Server Role using the Server Manager.

Good luck!

Also be sure that the driver software for the printer is installed on the client machine you wish to communicate to the printer.

I never got as far as the client machine. I can't share the printer on the server, therefore there is nothing for a client to connect to

I understand - your problem is access control. The driver software is still important as it is required for the client to associate the device itself.

Try this.

Step 1. Ensure that the printer is turned on.

Step 2: Click on Start > Devices and Printers

Step 3. Locate your printer model. Right click on it and choose "Printer properties"

Step 4. Click on the Sharing tab

Step 5. Make sure the "share this printer" checkbox is selected.

Step 6: Ensure that the print spooler service is started on the client machine. Open up command prompt and type in sc query spooler . If you see the current state as "running" then the service is operational and you may proceed to next step.

Step 7: The network path of your printer is \\COMPUTERNAME\Printersharingname . So for example if the name of your computer is BOB-PC and your printer sharing name is HP PSC 1315 Series, the network path of your printer is \\BOB-PC\HP PSC 1315 Series
To find the name of your printer open up command prompt and type in echo %computername%. To find the printer sharing name of your printer repeat Steps 1-4. Once you find your computer name and printer sharing name you can type the network path to the printer on the client machine to test whether or not you can access it.

Thanks for all the replies lads.

I've tried the steps above, and I get an error when I tick "Share this printer" and OK or Apply:
"Printer settings could not be saved. Operation could not be completed (error 0x000006d9)."

Googling for this error has brought me to a number of pages that say Windows Firewall should be on in order to share printers. Sure enough, Windows Firewall is not running on my server. But I can't start it, it's set to automatic and doesn't run. Starting it manually ends up with a "Windows could not start the Windows Firewall on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service-specific error code 5."

Looking at the System event log I'm no smarted, it reports "The Windows Firewall service terminated with service-specific error Access is denied.."

Trying to find any info on Windows Firewall just brings up tons of sites with people having problems with XP or Vista, none of it has any relevance.

I'm seriously considering reinstalling. Can anyone check if their Windows Firewall service is running?

It started reporting errors in the log about the firewall service (I haven't noticed) since the 2nd of September. I haven't installed any updates or software on that date

And is it worth it trying to "repair in place" ?

I would suspect that some form of malware has taken out the Windows Firewall service on your computer or you inadvertently mucked with some registry settings somehow and forgot what you did and screwed the settings up one way or another. The Windows Firewall service is set to automatic from default the minute you install Server 2008 R2. Sounds like something malicious.

I suggest you set up a Honeypot machine on a separate old machine that you don't care about or launch one in a virtual machine to test untrusted 3rd party software which you can use to mitigate the attack surface of your primary physical machine. What I mean by this is when you download something, don't run it on your primary machine, set up a machine where you could care less about data integrity (viruses, malware, etc) and test the software in there. This should severely reduce the footprint of attacks on your computer. Nothing is a guarantee. Not all viruses show themselves right away. It can't hurt though.