Section 11.1. Installing a Printer | Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual

11.1. Installing a Printer

A printer is a peripheral devicesomething outside of the PCand as such, it won't work without a piece of driver software explaining the new hardware to Windows. In general, getting this driver installed is a simple process. It's described in more detail in Chapter 12; here are a few notes on the process to get you started.

11.1.1. USB Printers

If the technology gods are smiling, then installing the driver for a typical inkjet USB printer works just as described in Chapter 12: you connect the printer, turn it on, and marvel as Vista autodetects it and autoinstalls the driver, thanks to its secret cache of hundreds of printer drivers (Figure 11-1).

Figure 11-1. You got lucky. Windows dug into its own bag of included drivers and installed the correct one. Let the printing begin.

If you have a really old printer, its drivers might not be Vista-compatible. Check the manufacturer's Web site, such as www. epson .com or www.lexmark.com, or a central driver repository like www.windrivers.com, to see if there's anything newer .

11.1.2. Network Printers

If you work in an office where people on the network share a single printer (usually a laser printer), the printer usually isn't connected directly to your computer. Instead, it's elsewhere on the network; your PC's Ethernet cable or wireless antenna connects you to it indirectly.

In general, there's very little involved in ensuring that your PC "sees" this printer. Its icon simply shows up in the Start Control Panel Printer folder. (If you dont see it, click "Add a printer" in the toolbar. On the wizard's second screen, you're offered the chance to "Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer." That's the one you want.)

Note: As you've probably guessed, that's also how you install a wireless or Bluetooth printer.

11.1.3. The Printer Icon

If your driver-installation efforts are ultimately successful, you're rewarded by the appearance of an icon that represents your printer.

This icon appears in the Printers windowan important window that you'll be reading about over and over again in this chapter. Exactly how you arrive there depends on how you've set up Vista:

If youve set up your Start menu to display a submenu for the Control Panel (Section 6.12), just choose Start Control Panel Printers.
Choose Start Control Panel, then click Printer (in the Hardware and Sound category).
If you view your Control Panel in Classic view (Section 6.12), choose Start Control Panel, and then open the Printers icon.
You can also make the Printers window show up in your Start menu, which saves you some burrowing if you use this feature a lot. To put it there, right-click the Start button. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. On the Start Menu tab, click Customize. Scroll down in the list of checkboxes, and finally turn on the Printers checkbox. Click OK twice.

In any case, the Printers window now contains an icon bearing the name you gave your printer during installation (Figure 11-2). This printer icon comes in handy in several different situations, as the rest of this chapter clarifies.

Figure 11-2. At first, the toolbar in the Printers window offers few commands. But when you click a particular printer icon, many more useful options appear, as shown here. Many of them duplicate the options that appear when you right-click a printer icon.