I’ve been using Windows 7 now for a couple weeks, and for the most part, it’s working great. However, I recently discovered another problem, and sadly, it doesn’t seem to be one that’s limited to me: problems with sharing a printer with a Mac
My old setup went like this: my main desktop was running Windows XP Pro 64-bit edition. Julia has a Mac running Mac OS 10.4. I have a laptop running Windows XP Home 32-bit edition. I have a Canon Pixma iP4600 printer (actually, it’s Julia’s) that was connected to my desktop and shared. Surprisingly, despite the mix and match of 32-bit and 64-bit, Windows and Mac OS, both laptops could print to the shared printer! It took a bit of jiggering, mainly because Mac printer drivers are ridiculous, but it worked.
After the upgrade to Windows 7, however, it no longer wants to play nice. I can kinda print from my Windows XP laptop, but the Mac is no good at all. Strangely, if I share a folder in Windows 7, the Mac can see that, but it can’t see the shared printer at all.
I’ve tried messing with the security settings, tried setting it up on the Mac various ways, tried mucking about with the SMB settings (another angry rant: Hey Microsoft, why can’t you at least include the Group Policy Editor in the Home version? It’s all accessible anyway in the registry, why do you have to be suck jerks about it?). Nada. Based on this thread, it’s a common problem.
Other than that somewhat important issue, I like Windows 7. But fess up, Microsoft: What did you break in Windows 7 to cause this problem?