Access Denied when installing Shared Network Printer on Windows Vista
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This Access Denied error message appears to be affecting quite a few Vista computers trying to get access to a shared printer on a Windows XP computer. When this first happened to me, I fiddled around for ages before finding the solution in the Microsoft TechNet forum.
To install your Shared Printer on your Vista computer do the following:
- Go to Control Panel
- Double click on Printer
- Click on Add Printer
- Select Add a Local Printer
- Click on Create a new port
- Select Local Port from drop down list (this is the default setting … don’t change it)
- Click Next
- A box will appear asking you to create a port name. Type in \\computername\printername where “computername” is the name of the computer that has the printer physically installed, and “printername” is the sharing name you assigned to the printer. Eg. My computer name was Office, and the printer sharing name was hpprinter, so I typed \\Office\hpprinter
- Press OK and follow prompts to select your printers driver from list.
- Wait for install to complete and print a test page.
Hopefully you can now print to your shared printers from your nice shiny new Vista computer 
it worked! an easy solution to a most annoying problem
Glad it helped you out!
Brilliant!! Thanks very much. This was driving me insane. Why did this have to be so counterintuitive! I thought this stuff was supposed to be improving with every new version!
No problem … it took me a little while to figure this one out as well. Glad it worked for you
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I thought I was in one of those Macintosh commericials, until I found your writing. Why did Bill Gates make Vista this way? He is not stupid. Oh, yes the almighty dollar!
Thank you for your advice about networking printers. It worked like a charm and saved me from considerable frustration.
Glad it helped you out.
I used to also use this work around back in the Windows 2000 era - Microsoft appeared to have fixed it in XP but unfortunately this annoyance somehow re-emerged. Anyway … thank god for this fix
I’ve tried it 3 times. I get the msg “The network path was not found.” What am I doing wrong?
It sounds like you have typed the printer path incorrectly. You will have to double check that the path is correct.
Sheer genius!! Many, many thanks to you! I’d been fighting with this problem at work and at home for the past two weeks. Thank you again!
Eat a third and drink a third and leave the remaining third of your stomach empty. Then, when you get angry, there will be sufficient room for your rage.
I found a solution which worked for my system when facing this problem.
Just turn off Windows USER ACCOUNT CONTROL (Control Panel - Users).
Anyone know what to do if access is still denied, or when I added the port it says it already exists? I can still see the printer in my network but access is still denied.
Thank you! It works so well that my dog, who was napping next to my laptop, almost had a heart attack when the test page began to print in the next room!!!
Hi I’m very happy I found this solution which seems to work for so many people. Unfortunately, between the steps 8 and 9 of your instructions (i.e. specified the printer path correctly), I get the following error msg: “Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.” However, I didnt even get a chance to give a name/password for the computer with the shared printer. Any ideas?? Thank you so much!
pls I need any 1’s Advice.
I just added my labtop with window Vista to an Existing network(LAN) of 5 system.I Can view 4 out of the systems but i can’t view 1 and that is where the Printer is attarch.
pls What can I do …………..
Thank you.