From: "Frank Haber" 

I took this in error to email.  I'm returning it here.
==
Thanks, everybody. Coupla questions, since I now learn one printer is USB:

o XP Home on the daddy machines doesn't affect things?

o With no auto-discovery, how do you get the printer driver on the laptop?
Install dummy local printer, requiring plugin midway, if USB? PITA?

o Was that what Rich meant when he said "add network printer?"
Can you force-install an HP Deskjet without connecting the printer at the
magic moment? I've had evil results when I tried to do that. The drivers
work in their delightful overcomplicated resource-intensive manner when
installed as HP asks, until you upgrade XP. They work when auto-installed
via printer discovery over the net, a wonderful feature that's spoiled
everyone. Do you get auto-discovery when you add a printer manually via
NETBIOS name?

o And if I can see the disk shares on the XP Home desktop, why can't I see
the printer shares in the printer browser?

(And George replied...)
>ah, some of the less expensive deskjet printers don't allow you to share them
over the network.

==
But this printer is an HP 5100*, and it shares fine to another machine on
the Workgroup, and offers the proper driver via autodiscovery.  It even
offers a version to 98 machines.  Anyone else have any experience with this
stuff? There are some school HP drivers installed for printers awfully
close to this HP, and that gives me some pause.

*the fast one, where all the gears strip after a year and a half of use -
fegh.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5