Installing and Sharing a Local Printer

To print from a computer that is not part of a network, you must physically connect a printer to your computer, usually through either a USB port or a parallel port. A printer that is connected directly to your computer is called a local printer. The software to run the printer is installed on and run from your computer. When you connect a printer to your computer and then turn on the printer, Windows Vista recognizes that a device has been connected and identifies the type of device. It then searches through its database of drivers to locate the appropriate software to run the printer. If Windows Vista doesn’t have the current driver for your particular printer, it asks you to provide the driver.

Troubleshooting ...

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