Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 December 13

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December 13

Network printer not recognized under Windows XP but comes up no problem under Vista and Win 8. How can I fix it?

I don't know anything about networking. But I connected the printer to this: http://i.imgur.com/6eICqDM.jpg and the other computers see it, but my windows xp printers do not. I get this: http://i.imgur.com/dZnEtcC.jpg and even when I put the network and printer name, it doesn't work. Is there a program or tool or a way to make it work? Or should I connect the printer to a switch that is also in the room? If it helps, the printer is a hp color laserjet 5500. Thanks for the help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:5FC0:1E:15CB:3E18:656C:8F1E (talk) 05:12, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Depending on your printer, you might be able to get it to print out a page of network information. Have a mess around with the printer's menu. That will tell you the IP address of the printer which you might be able to use in the Windows XP "Add Printer Wizard" dialog (your second photo). You might alsio be able to get the same IP address information by looking atthe printer properties from the Vista or Windows 8 PCs. Astronaut (talk) 11:18, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I have the IP, but I dont know where to enter it. The place where I put the IP in when you look in the picture isnt the correct place and I dont see any other place to put it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:5FC0:1E:15CB:3E18:656C:8F1E (talk) 17:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean it isn't the correct place? If you select the second option, the place for the IP is I'm pretty sure the correct place for the IP of the printer. If it doesn't work, error messages or info on what goes wrong would help. One thing to bear in mind, I'm not totally sure what sort of network printers protocols Windows XP supports. I know it supports printers shared by Windows sharing (SMB) but I don't know what else. IIRC, some network printer protocols are supported but not installed by default (NFS or some Unix one I think, not CUPS). If I were you, I would first install any software and drivers provided by your printer manufacturer for Windows XP. This would likely ensure any protocol support is probably installed. P.S. According to [1], if you have a LPR printer, you possibly should set it up differently than a network printer, at least in XP. Nil Einne (talk) 19:26, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I put the IP there and tried it (and took the picture), but if you look closely, its not the field to enter the IP, its the field to enter the \\server\printer. I'm looking on the site and there are a ton of options as far as drivers, which one do I install?

1. HP Color LaserJet 5500 PostScript Driver 2. HP Color LaserJet 5500 PCL6 Driver 3. HP Color LaserJet 5500 PCL6 Point and Print Bundle 4.hp color LaserJet 5500 PostScript point and print bundle 5.hp color LaserJet 5500 ICC color profiles CMYK 6.HP color LaserJet 5500 ICC profiles sRGB 7. Driver - Product Installation Software - HP Printers Supported in Citrix Presentation Server Environments (PDF) and a few more, here's the page: http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdHome/?sp4ts.oid=85197&spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3DswEnvOID%253D228%257CswLang%253D%257Caction%253DlistDriver&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.82.70.245 (talk) 07:02, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I don't understand what you mean. Server would be the IP of the printer if that's what you're using instead of a domain name. So if the printer's IP is 192.168.0.245 the address would be \\192.168.0.245 which is the standard way to specify SMB network paths in Windows. As I mentioned, I don't know that much about Windows XP support for network printers other than those exposed with SMB, in SMB the norm would be for the printer to be exposed as something within the IP so for example \\192.168.0.245\HPprinter (which you could normally see by visiting \\192.168.0.245 from explorer) but I presume it's possible \\192.168.0.245 would simply work for some other protocols (alternatively perhaps try \\192.168.0.245\printer or \\192.168.9.245\print). There's definitely no where else to enter the IP of the printer, unless you are setting it up as something else such as http or LPR (which Windows considers a local printer connected to over a network port). As for the drivers, unless you want prefer postscript I would suggest the PCL ones as it's likely closest to what the HP printer uses internally, in fact in some cases the printer will need an addon before it even supports Postscript. The driver may be enough if it doesn't help, try the Point and print bundles as well. Installing the ICC profiles should help with colour matching although it depends on if they are used properly (but some software may do so automatically). In general there will be no harm to installing the ICC profiles unless you've set everything up with the assumption there is no colour matching and colour matching makes everything look wrong. Nil Einne (talk) 06:00, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

According to [2] about the "HP Color LaserJet 5500n printer (model number C7131A)" - "The HP CLJ 5500n printer contains all of the features of the base model plus an HP Jetdirect 615N print server (network card)". From [3] it sounds like HTTP may be supported. While I wasn't sure at first if Internet Printing Protocol is supported or just HTTP management or something, per [4] it sounds like it is so you may want to try the third option in the network printer config as well (http://192.168.0.245 may be enough if not you'll need to find the entire URL for IPP on your printer). Besides that since it seems HTTP management is also supported, try visiting the printer from your browser in Windows XP. In addition perhaps look at the stuff here [5], in particular for XP here [6] if the 5500n stuff doesn't do all you want it to do.

Note however if you can't visit the printer from your browser, but can visit it from a browser on one of the other printers this suggests there's something wrong with your network set-up preventing the two from communicating with each other. (And the document I looked at earlier also suggests the wizard should just work in XP.) You mentioned something about connecting the printer to the same switch, I presume you don't mean the printer and the Windows XP computer aren't connected to each other in some way at all but rather it's a more diverse route e.g. over multiple switches or perhaps wifi. This shouldn't generally matter provided the printer and Windows XP aren't blocked by a firewall or router and are on the same subnet. You should find out what the subnet for the printer and Window XP computer is and make sure they are compatible. For example, if the printer is 192.168.0.245 as given in the earlier example with a subnet 255.255.255.0 this means the printer will never be able to see the Windows XP computer if it's 192.168.1.1 regardless of subnet of the Windows XP computer without the involvement of a NAT router or similar. Also can the Windows XP computer see the other computers or at least ping them? For that matter can it ping the printer? If it can't there may be something off in your config. For example, getting back to an earlier point, make sure there is no firewall or router in between the two. (If there is one between, you'd need to set it up to allow the necessary traffic between the two and it sounds like that may be a bit difficult for you.)

Nil Einne (talk) 06:34, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Sound

I have a PC that's at least seven years old. 72 hours ago, when I went to youtube and listened to a video, I heard sound. Now there is no sound. This happened about three or four months ago. My wife phoned a company that she thought was microsoft (since it said so on Google) but was not. She paid money to find out that if you go to "Start" and choose "Control Panel" and then "Sounds and Audio Devices" and then something, you can hear sound again. Nothing like that is working now. Also, when I go to the task manager and choose whichever svchost.exe process is using the most memory and kill it, my computer suddenly starts working reasonably instead of behaving like a lawyer or like a wino who's about to die of inebriation two minutes from now. Is there some way I can hear youtube videos without paying ransom to a criminal? Michael Hardy (talk) 06:33, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Does your computer have an active and up to date antivirus program? It sounds like you may have a trojan pretending to be a system file and this should be ruled out early on. Especially since it sounds a bit like ransomware, where you notice a problem and your problem redirects your search to a dodgy company, which then "fixes" the problem for a fee. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 11:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Such software is supposed to be there, provided by Comcast. I'm going to phone Comcast and ask about it.

Thanks. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Svchost.exe is a genuine windows process, often found running multiple times in the task manager. If you have to force close it to get your computer working properly though, there's clearly something wrong. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 13:05, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes Svchost often ties up slower computers with not a lot of memory (like the one I'm typing on), and it is not always clear which process is tying up the system. Process Explorer might be useful in identifying the problem, which could be malware, or anti-malware doing a useful task, or just some other memory-intensive or processor-intensive program. If you've already identified the problem dll file as one supplied by Comcast then they should be able to help. Dbfirs 16:46, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

What is the OS of your computer? Your Svchost problem might be related to WU. Did the latest WU go smoothly? Oda Mari (talk) 08:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to work on digesting all this..... Michael Hardy (talk) 20:09, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

What I thought was this. [7] and [8]. All you have to do is disable automatic update, install IE patch first, KB2898785, shut down/reboot, go to MicroSoft Update and install the rest. Oda Mari (talk) 09:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

dictionary (english to english) with pronunciation

I want to install an offline dictionary (English to English) with pronunciation to my son's Samsung Galaxy star Phone. There are many dictionaries available at Google Play. To download which one? Kindly suggest a good dic. which will be helpful for his CIMA studies. Thank you.175.157.67.184 (talk) 08:35, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what you mean by "English-to-English". Do you mean a dictionary that gives definitions or a Thesaurus? Mingmingla (talk) 22:19, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

By English to English I mean for an English word explanation is in English, Pronunciation and sample sentences. Thanks.175.157.98.38 (talk) 03:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I fixed your formatting to make it more readable. Mingmingla (talk) 04:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I use Dictionary.com's app. I'm happy with it. It has an offline mode but I have not used the app with it engaged. If you're looking for free apps, I don't see anything stopping you from downloading them and trying them out to see which will suit your needs and then deleting those that don't. Note however that the offline mode will have to store the contents of the dictionary on your phone which may take up quite a bit of space if it includes sound files. Dismas|^(talk) 05:54, 14 December 2013 (UTC)