On Windows 8, support for my HP network printer is built-in, and I don't need to do anything to be able to print to it. On 7 however, it seems I need to download a driver. HP's "basic" driver is anything but basic, and I would prefer not to deal with it. So is there any way for me to print to my network printer without dealing with HP's driver suite?
The most easy way to get your Printer working as Network Printer is to do the following: share the Printer on that computer where it is installed (if it's not connected to the network via NIC) open the File Manager in W7 click on the Network Tab if the printer is connected directly via NIC you'll 'see' the Printers ID if not via NIC, (double) click on the Computer ID where the printer is installed and you should 'see' the Printer ID if via NIC, (double) click the Printer ID and it will ask for the location of the driver and you should point to the drivers location (I've all drivers in an folder called Driver) and it will install the required drivers if via other computer, (double) click the printer ID of that computer and it will install the driver automatically if same Platform (32bit or 64bit) or ask for the drivers location (see: 6.) That's all and should work with no problems!
Ended up figuring something out Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Devices and Printers > Add a printer > Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer > The printer that I want isn't listed > Add a printer using a TCP/IP address or hostname > Device type: TCP/IP Device Hostname or IP address: (IP of printer) Port name: (should auto-fill to the IP listed above; could probably use 3911 also) [x] Query the printer and automatically select the driver to use Have Disk... Browse... (find printer driver folder) Install the driver and that's it. For the driver folder, I downloaded HP's basic driver for my printer (it's a ENVY 4500), and extracted it to a folder via 7-Zip. I chose the printer without problem, and it worked fine afterwards. My printer uses a static IP, so this should work fine for long-term, but I'm unsure what would happen if the printer's IP changes.
Oh I already have the printer working; I just have it set to a static IP. On 7, since (with the instructions I followed above) you have to specify a static IP; I'm not certain what Windows would do if the printer had its IP change (probably just report an error or something). I just left that note there for anyone else who happens to stumble upon this page You could probably just pull up the printer IP also via the printer's own interface (the printer I have displays it on Wireless preferences), or via router settings. Unrelated, but do you really have 200+ clients connected to your router to need that 252 DHCP limit? On my particular setup, I have maybe less than 10 devices that will ever need a DHCP-assigned IP, so I just have it set to 25 just-incase But my major devices (printer, media server, NAS, etc) all have static IPs all above the range of DHCP.
About the red: No, you don't need! It's just that some device drivers set the IPS to an specific range which may exceeds those range you've set in your router! If set to the full range, you didn't have to think about. That works best in case you often ad and/or remove devices which need to work with IP's. That also works well for those devices which have an floating IP instead of an fixed IP.