How to add a printer to Windows Home Server

This post is more of a reminder for myself. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how I did this before and I thought I’d document it for other people. My Samsung ML-2010 crapped out… the Error is stuck continuously on. Adding new toner didn’t solve the problem and there isn’t any paper jam that I can find. So, I guess I’ll just chalk it up to a crappy Samsung product that didn’t even outlast the starter cartridge. I ended up buying a refurbished Brother printer from Fry’s for $50 AR. Maybe I should have bought an HP instead. In any case, the Brother HL-2040 is my new printer attached to my network via my Windows Home Server.

These are the steps that I followed when installing the printer:

1. Install the printer driver on the Windows Home Server. I still have an optical drive and monitor hooked up to my WHS. Others with a pre-built home server will probably need to use remote desktop connection and a networked optical drive to do the driver install.
2. Hook everything up to the server according to instructions and make sure that the test page can be printed.
3. On the client computer, install the printer drivers as well (this step may be optional, but it worked for me).
4. On the client, click Start | Run and enter the path to the server: \\servername. Click OK to browse resources on the server.
5. Right-click the network printer and choose “Connect”. The printer will be installed.

This will install the printer on the proper port on the client. I had already installed the drivers on the client PC, but that may not be necessary with this method.

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