Printing to a shared XP printer

[thx_1138]

I'm hoping I can get some help from all you experts out there. I'm still a Mac rookie.

I just purchased an HP DeskJet 5940. It is attached as a shared printer on my XP-Pro box. The XP box is on a Linksys router and is visible from my iMac as a Windows printer. When I add the printer to my printer list it prompts me for the printer model. That model is not listed.

I have installed the Mac drivers that came with the printer and have loaded updated Mac drivers from the web. From what I can tell the drivers are Tiger compatible.

I am just not having any luck matching the mac drivers to the shared printer. I'm only having luck using the 'generic' drivers.

Any ideas??

 

[mad jew]

Try installing Bonjour for Windows on the PC and then start the set up process again. Some people have more luck with the Bonjour method.

Also, is there anything wrong with the generic drivers? Do they seem to work properly?

 

[thx_1138]

Thanks for the advice. I'll give that a shot tonight.

Follow-up regarding Bonjour. I am able to see the shared printer on my Mac now. I can even print to it. My real issue is that I have to use either Tiger's generic driver or use a gimp driver. Neither of these allow me to access some of the printers quality settings (specific paper types, quality, etc.). How would Bonjour help in that respect?

 

[mad jew]

Yeah, I'm not certain that Bonjour will work but it's worth a try. It's solved very similar problems so hopefully it can help here.

 

[thx_1138]

Follow-up. I installed Bonjour on the Windows XP box rebooted both that and the iMac. No change.

I have also (at the suggestion of another posting) installed the hpijs and ESP ghostscript driver from :http://www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/hpijs/

The installs seemed to have worked though I still do not see this printer listed under the Printer Models drop down when I add a Windows printer in the printer setups.

Any more ideas before I take this printer back for a refund.

 

[mad jew]

Just checked with the HP site and it seems your DeskJet 5940 isn't compatible with OSX (well, at least not Tiger). I don't know what more to say other than to keep using the generic drivers or get a refund.

The site implies that these drivers are the only ones available in OSX but then also implies that these are the only ones built into OSX. Either way, I say go to HP and get a different printer, one that's guaranteed to work with Tiger.