i want to install my hp officejet printer onto my work laptop and print wireless to my printer thats connected to my desktop,,i have already done this to my wifes laptop and it did great..i install it to my work laptop and look for the printer in the printer and fax folder under control panel and its not there..also i may need a virtual usb driver or something like that on here..which i dont have...what should i do...help

Many HP printers cannot be shared over a network as a network printer unless both computers are using the same operating system family - e.g. XP, or Win 9x/ME. See this for further info about that, and for info about sharing a HP printer: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?cc=us&docname=bpu04830&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN Both computers must have a Home Network set up. File and printer sharing, or at least printer sharing, must be enabled on both computers. If both computers are using XP, you do not have to install any drivers or software for the printer on a computer that is using the printer as a network printer - and you do not have to manually install a network printer on the computer that is using the printer as a network printer - if everything is set right, the network printer will be found automatically, and the necessary driver files will be found over the network and copied from the hard drive of the computer that has the printer physically attached to it, or from XP itself if it already has the driver files. ...... If you are able to share your printer with different operating system families, if a computer has Win 9x/ME on it, if you want to use a printer as a network printer you must install the printer as a network printer in Printers, and install the Win 9x/ME drivers for that printer, on the Win 9x/ME machine(s), and you must make sure the printer is set to be shared in its own Properties. ...... Why do you think you need a virtual USB driver?

"Both computers must have a Home Network set up." and have the same Workgroup name.

i thought i needed a virtual usb driver,because thats what my wifes laptop appears to be using to print to the printer thats attached to my desktop,,i cant get it to work with my work laptop

on my wifes laptop,,under printers and faxes,,it shows the hp officejet 5510 on phoneman,,,i had to install this using the hp install disk on her laptop which uses xp,,it installed itself with what looks like a network symbol like it was networked with the printer that is attached to the desktop,,,i cant get the same thing to show up on my work laptop under printers and faxes

im still waiting on a response to my earlier postings...can anyone see them...thanks alot

"i thought i needed a virtual usb driver,because thats what my wifes laptop appears to be using to print to the printer thats attached to my desktop...." All my findings in response 1 are based on my recent experiences with trying to get a HP USB connected all-in-one to work as a network printer on a network of six computers, three of which have XP on them, two of the others have Win 98SE, one has Win 98. This is a wired network, but a wireless network has the same underlying requirements that must be in place - in fact one of the computers that now has Win98SE on it had XP on it previously and was connected wirelessly to a wireless router on the same network and it was recognizing the all-in-one as a network printer - we had to wipe it's hard drive because of malware problems, and loaded 98SE because the XP was not a legitimate install. I saw no evidence of any virtual USB anything on the XP computers for that USB connected all-in-one, so I have no idea what you are talking about. In any case, if everything is set right, you don't need to install anything special yourself, manually - XP will automatically install what is needed. "on my wifes laptop,,under printers and faxes,,it shows the hp officejet 5510 on phoneman..." I have no idea what phoneman would be, unless it's got something to do with a telephone line based (non Dial-up) network connection. It doesn't necessarily have to say the same thing on your other computer unless it is using the same type of network connection. In any case, if everything is set right, XP will automatically install what is needed. ....... Is the printer still physically connected to the same computer as it was when your wife's laptop could see a network printer? If it isn't that complicates things. Is there a router involved in the connection to this computer you can't see the network printer on? If so, are you able to see shared anything on that computer? If you aren't able to see shared anything, even if everything else is set right, you may need to make some changes to your routers configuration - e.g. if XP SP2 is on one or both computers and it came that way rather than being upgraded to SP2, it requires you use an encryption code to access a wireless connection - the router must use the same code. and/or - you may have to change a setting in your Windows SP2 Firewall and/or - the router may have a MAC address filter enabled that only allows specified MAC addresses to access the wireless router connection (the initial router config usually has this set to disabled by default, and it would have to have been enabled by someone, and have at least one MAC address entered) - if that's your case, you must add the MAC address of the wireless network adapter on the computer that can't see anything that is shared to the "allow" list(or turn off using a MAC address filter altogether)