I need help hooking up my printer to my laptop.

What would I need to print wirelessly from my laptop to my printer that is hooked up to my desktop?

• I know very little about hooking anything like this up or the equipment needed to do it. I'm not sure if this info will help but thought I better include it just in case. My desktop is a compaq presario and uses windows xp. The new laptop is an hp pavillion and uses windows vista. My printer is an hp photosmart c5280. The desktop is plugged into a router so I can use my laptop from the other room. I want to be able to print from both the desktop and the laptop without disconnecting anything each time I print. Someone told me that I would need a USB or something like that to plug into the printer to print from the laptop. Is this true. If yes, what is the exact name of what I need to ask for at the store. Also, I downloaded the CD that came with my printer onto my laptop but I'm not sure what else I need to do....thanks for your help in advance.

• Answer:

  If you desktop pc and your laptop are hooked through a router, you have a LAN or local area network in place. install the microsoft file and print sharing protocol and if TCPIP is not installed you need to set that up too. you should be able to connect to the printer shared on your desk top PC and print from there. You may need to install the printer drivers on the lap top PC also.