Solved: Bi-directional support unavailable on desktop PC

[dooey123]

Hi there,

I have a Lexmark x9350 wireless printer, a laptop running Vista Home Edition and a desktop PC running Vista Home premium. The printer is in another room to the desktop due to space and so I would like to print wirelessly from the desktop without having to switch on the laptop first and print via that i.e Desktop -> shared printer on Laptop -> Printer which is what I'm doing now.

The laptop works fine with the printer wirelessly and within the printer properties there is a tick in the bi-directional support checkbox.

The desktop pc however has exactly the same printer driver as the laptop and can detect the printer on the network but the bi-directional support checkbox is unticked and greyed out and so I get the error that Bi-di.. needs to be turned on in order to print. The desktop PC is connecting to the printer via the home network wireless router.

I can only put the difference between one working and the other not down to the laptop having a built in wireless card and so theres no problems when the printer needs to talk back to the laptop where as the desktop is communicating via the router and the printer messages cannot make it through for some reason. Am I right in saying this or is there another explanation? I have already tried an updated driver from the Lexmark website.

Thanks in advance for your time on this.

 

[TerryNet]

To what is the printer connected and by what? I would expect it and all computers to be connecting to the router.

You may have a non-Windows firewall or security suite on the laptop that is blocking the one direction.

 

[dooey123]

Hi TerryNet, yes the printer and laptop both connect wirelessly to the router (Linksys WAG200G), the desktop is connected to this by ethernet cable. The laptop works fine with the printer. The print driver on the laptop is setup for sharing on the network and I can print to this from the desktop. Everything uses windows standard firewall.

 

[TerryNet]

Very nice diagram! Did you put that all together yourself, or find a diagram and add to it? Either way, nice job.

The wireless/ethernet should make no difference at all. That difference should be invisible to the printer and printer software. (Notice that I said "should," the only sure thing about networks and printers are constant unexplainable surprises.)

The only thing I can suggest is to remove all evidence of the printer from the desktop and then, after a reboot, install it again. Install only the network instance, not the shared one from the laptop. In other words, hope there was a glitch and the 2nd installation will be OK. Next would be to search the Lexmark web site for anything similar, and try to contact Lexmark in the unlikely event they can shed some light.

 

[dooey123]

Thanks for the compliment on the diagram, just did it in PowerPoint.
I had already tried a complete removal and reinstall. I have also just installed a dummy printer driver ( epsom or some other), using an LPT port, did this twice with different configurations and the bidirectional support option is still always greyed out which makes me think the issue is to do with my system rather that the printer drivers.

 

[TerryNet]

Check in Control Panel - Windows Firewall to see if there seems to be anything about the printer that is blocked. I'm not on Vista now, and XP/Vista/7 are all a little different, so can't give you anything more explicit now. In XP you'd look at the 'Exceptions' page; in Windows 7 at 'Allow programs to communicate through Windows Firewall.'

 

[dooey123]

I am now a happy bunny.

I uninstalled all the print drivers,
used JV16 powertools to go into the registry and delete every key related to "Lexmark 9300".
Rebooted,
Ran the Lexmark installation .exe again (but this time as administrator just in case).
Checking the printer port properties Bi-directional support is now checked and I can now print directly to the printer. Woo hoo!! I've had it for two years and just put up with it.

TerryNet, many thanks for your prompt responses you are a star and especially so considering you do this for free.

 

[TerryNet]

You're welcome for my attempts, but in this case my free advice was worth exactly that!

Nice job of fixing! And many thanks for posting the solution. Long ago I've used that method (but searching by hand in Regedit) to solve a couple problems, but haven't thought about it lately.

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