What are laptop symptoms to detect pc problems?

Printing problems please help ;/?

• My laptop running vista is connected to my dad's pc running XP in a wireless home network. I have been able to detect my dad's printer and have also installed it on my laptop. When I choose to print from the laptop it goes into the laptop's spooler ready to print, however nothing happens. When i go on my dad's computer and select the printer it just says 'Ready to Print', and the print job is not transferred. Any ideas? =( Thanks

• Answer:

  Hope this helps... "After I installed my new printer on the computer, I wanted to use it from other computers. I even wanted to print from my laptop computer, sitting on the patio, connecting to the network with a wireless NIC. Before I could do that, I had to share the printer. Windows XP doesn't automatically share printers, which is a good thing when you don't want to share your toys. To share the printer, I opened the Printers and Faxes folder on the computer that was connected to my printer. To open the Printers and Faxes folder • Click Start and then click Control Panel. • Click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Printers and Faxes. • In the Printers and Faxes folder, I clicked the printer's icon and, in the tasks pane, I clicked Share This Printer. • I opened the printer's Properties dialog box, and clicked on the Sharing tab. • I clicked Share Name, and then clicked OK. That's it—the printer was immediately available for other computers to use. Now that I had a network printer, I was ready to connect to it and print from other computers on the network. To connect to the printer • I opened Control Panel, and clicked Printers and Other Hardware. • I clicked Add a Printer. • Instead of adding a local printer, though, I clicked Printer Connection and then browsed the network for the printer. The whole process took less than a minute before I was printing to the network printer as though it was connected to the computer."