Sharing Printers with Others on Your Network

To share your printer

1. Open Printers and Faxes. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Printers and Faxes.
2. Right-click the printer you want to share, and then click Sharing.
3. On the Sharing tab, click Share this printer and then type a share name for the shared printer.
4. Type a share name for the shared printer
5. If you share the printer with others using different hardware or different operating systems, click Additional Drivers. Click the Environment and operating system for the other computers, and then click OK to install the additional drivers.

Additional drivers

Note  Drivers for users running other versions of Windows (Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0) are located on the Support CD. Printer drivers for Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT 3.5 are not included.

Click OK, or, if you have installed additional drivers, click Close.

Note  When you publish a printer in Active Directory, other users logged on to the Windows domain will be able to search for the printer based on its location and features, such as how many pages it prints per minute and whether color printing is supported.

To stop sharing your printer

1. Open Printers and Faxes. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Printers and Faxes.
2. Right-click the printer you want to stop sharing, and then click Sharing.
3. On the Sharing tab, click Do Not share this printer.

To connect to a printer on a network

1. Open Printers and Faxes. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Printers and Faxes.
2. Under Printer Tasks, click Add a printer to open the Add Printer Wizard, and then click Next.
3. Click A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer, and then click Next.
4. Add Printer Wizard
5. Three Ways to Connect to a Printer on a Network
6. To search for a printer in Active Directory
7. Click Find a printer in the directory, and then click Next.
8. Find a printer in the directory
9. Click the Browse button to the right of Location, click the printer location, and then click OK.
10. Browse
11. Click Find Now.
12. Click the printer you want to connect to, and then click OK.
13. To locate a printer by typing the printer name or browsing for it
14. Click Connect to this printer.
15. Browse
16. Do one of the following:
17. Type the printer name using the following format:  \\printserver_name\share_name
18. Browse for it on the network. Click Next, click the printer in Shared printers.
19. Connect to a printer
20. Click Next.

For more information please visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457001.aspx