Windows 10: Connecting to a shared printer as a User

I have two Windows 10 Pro x64 machines - say, A and B - connected into a home network. Both machines have two interactive user accounts registered on them: Admin (member of Administrators) and Bob (member of Users). On both machines user names are exactly the same and account passwords are exactly the same.

I don't use HomeGroup file sharing, all sharing is set up using accounts and passwords. Everything works fine with folder sharing.

Now I would like to share a printer. The printer is connected to machine A. I enable sharing for that device and give it share name HP. I also go to the printer security settings and enable everything for Administrators and Users.

Now I go to machine B. First, I log in as Admin. I go to Devices and Printers in Control Panel and perform the regular procedure of adding a network printer. At some point I have to enter the name of the printer, so I enter \\A\HP. Without asking for any credentials Windows successfully connects to the remote printer, installs drivers, prints the test page etc. The remote printer appears in Devices and Printers. Everything works as it should.

Then I log out from Admin and log in as Bob on the very same machine B. The first thing that I notice is that for Bob the new printer does not exist in Devices and Printers. This is probably OK, since access to shared network resources depends on per-user credentials.

So, I attempt to "install" this printer for Bob as well. I repeat the same procedure from scratch. this time as Bob: go to Devices and Printers in Control Panel and perform the regular procedure of adding a network printer. Again, at some point I have to enter the name of the printer, so I enter \\A\HP. However, Windows suddenly asks me for credentials to connect to the printer. If I enter Bob's user name and password, Windows refuses connect to the printer, claiming that Bob does not have permission to access it. End of story.

So, what is going on in this case?

Note that I can work around this problem: I can enter Admin's user name and password when installing the printer for Bob and ask Windows to remember these credentials. Everything will work fine after that, which means that Bob will access that printer as Admin.

But what if I don't want to do it that way? I don't want to give Bob credentials of Admin to access the network printer. I want Bob to access that printer under Bob's credentials. It works perfectly fine for file sharing. How come it doesn't work for printer sharing? What am I missing?

:)

 

Connecting to a shared printer

Jim,

The printer is not wireless. It is connected to the Windows XP computer via USB. The printer is an Epson Stylus C88.

Thanks,

Greg

 

Connecting to a shared printer

I have tried both the Windows 10 driver and the driver supplied by the manufacturer.

Thank you,

Greg

 

Did you give Bob's full username for Computer A? For Windows, ComputerA\Bob and ComputerB\Bob are two different users. When connecting to Computer A from Computer B as Bob you should give the username as ComputerA\Bob (replace the ComputerA with the computer's network name).