Airport Express

[thepominlaw]

Trying to share a printer with my sons Windows 7 machine, no matter what I do he cannot find it and nothing shows up when he scans for it. It used to work fine but not now; only thing I can think of is its something to do with Mavericks as it was fine under Mountain Lion.

Anyhow I could buy a WIFI printer but I am very happy with the ip4850 and don’t really want to change it. Ultimately though he needs to be able to print his homework so I am wondering what options I have to get this working.

Would spending £68 on an airport express work or am I wasting my money as a) I am not quite sure I need one and b) don’t really know what it does that the router doesn’t (the printer is next to the router), I looked at a Synology NAS as I would also like to share a drive but that doesn’t support the printer. To it looks like the Express would let me share my printer but I would need an Extreme to share a hard drive (not sure if it supports both though)

 

[Brian33]

I gather that your printer is plugged into a Mac, and that you were sharing it with OS X's "Printer Sharing". If that's the case, it does sound like Mavericks had something to do with it ceasing to work. Hopefully someone else can suggest why (I'm still on Mt. Lion).

You shouldn't have to buy an Express or Extreme, but just to let you know, an Airport Extreme will support both printers and hard drives (you can use a USB hub for more USB ports). The Express will work only with printers.