Wireless Printer to a Wired Laptop

bradleyh10 · #1 (**permalink**) 04-09-2006, 08:18 PM

Hi
i hope someone can help me!!

i have a new sony laptop (winXP) which natually has wireless capabilities
(on another note it also has bluetooth)

i dont have a wireless router, i use a wired router for the internet
i brought a wireless printer but am having trouble using it..

this is what i see the problem as being...

the printer works fine if i disable the ethernet connection but when its on and im on the internet it doesnt.

because even though the printer is a local printer it must look for the connection through the network

so what i imagine i need to tell windows to do is to look for the internet down the wired network and the printer down the wireless network...?!?!?!

any ideas how to get it all going smoothly ??

or would it be easier to return the printer and get a bluetooth printer?? but not maybe laptops or computers are bluetooth active whereas many are wireless so.. i assume wireless is better ?

thanks
Bradley

NZLamb · #2 (**permalink**) 04-09-2006, 09:19 PM

The router and printer will need to be on different subnets, with each interface on the laptop configured for a suitable address within that range.

For example, you might have the printer as 192.168.2.2/24, the laptop's wireless interface on 192.168.2.1/24, the laptop's Ethernet interface as 192.168.1.1/24 and the router as 192.168.1.2/24.

If they all have the same network address, Windows will simply send all outgoing packets for that network out of the interface that is highest in the binding order, seeing it doesn't actually know what interface a particular IP address can be reached from if it is possible from more than one.

Using two different ranges of IP addresses means Windows can immediately differentiate between the networks and sends data to its correct destination.

Note it is actually possible to use the same network address if you create suitable static routes but in this situation that would not be recommended.