Networking question

[aspnetguy]

Okay, I have a small home network using a D-Link wireless router.I have 3 boxes, 1 - WinXP, 2-WinServer2003, 3-WinServer2003Right now they are setup and share an internet connection but that is about it.box1 is my main PC for games and work and has a USB printer hooked to it.box2 is my webserverbox3 will eventually be my webcrawler/email serverWhat I want to know is, can the 3 boxes share the 1 USB printer?Also I would like to configure the network so all 3 boxes can access a shared network folder for passing files back and forth.I am not a network guru by no means, it took me a while to get my current setup so any guidence is very appreciated, also the more 'dummy proof' the better.So if anyone can tell me how to acheive this setup or point to some articles that can I would be very grateful.Details---------------------------------Box #1 - Main PCAMD Duron 1800+/1.8Ghz512Mb PC2700 DDR-RAMWindows XP Professional SP2Box #2 - Web ServerPentium 3 600Mhz512Mb PC100 SD-RAMWindows Server 2003 Standard EditionBox #3 - Web Crawler/Email ServerPentium MMX 233Mhz128Mb PC100 SD-RAMWindows Server 2003 Standard Edition

[reportingsjr]

Yes you can make them all use the same printer. We have this router thing at my house and we use 2 or 3 computers on it.Im at school right now so when I get home I will tell you what it is. I will ask the person who set it up what to do for you .

[aspnetguy]

Yes you can make them all use the same printer. We have this router thing at my house and we use 2 or 3 computers on it.Im at school right now so when I get home I will tell you what it is. I will ask the person who set it up what to do for you .

thanks

[justsomeguy]

You can share any printer for access across the network. At my place, we have one printer that is a network printer, where you just plug an ethernet cable into it and give it an IP and you can access it from anywhere. For local printers, you share them with Windows and just install them from another machine. Windows XP and beyond make it real easy, because they automatically copy the drivers for other OSs.On the machine with the printer installed, go to Start -> Control Panel -> Printers and Faxes. Right-click on your printer and select Sharing. Select "Share this Printer" and give it a share name, and click the Additional Drivers button to see if you need to install other drivers for 2003, but it will probably use the same ones. Once it is shared, on your other machines, open up the Printers and Faxes control panel again, and click on Add a New Printer. Choose "Network printer", and hit next. Select the middle option ("Connect to this printer"), leave the field blank and hit Next to browse the network. Find your shared printer, and voila.To set up a file share, you can do basically the same thing, but with a folder instead of a printer. I have my inetpub folder shared so I can access my code from anywhere. Browse to the folder you want to share, right-click on it and select "Sharing and Security". Select "Share this folder", give it a share name, and configure permissions if you want to (if the computer is not a server, it's generally not a problem, or else you might want to require a login for accessing the folder). Once you share the folder, the easiest way to access it from another machine is to map it as a network drive. So, on the other machines, open up a Windows Explorer window, and go up to Tools -> Map Network Drive. Choose a drive letter (it's probably best to choose the same drive letter on each machine, in case you save files that include the virtual path), hit Browse to find your shared folder, and that's it. Once it's mapped, you can access it through My Computer as another drive, and it will automatically be reconnected whenever you log on again.

[aspnetguy]

awesome, thank you