Advice please-networking solution?

[Vlad_Dracul]

Hello,
My partner works in an office environment at a large university. In her department there are several pc s which are all networked to the university network server system which lives in a building some distance away. She has a printer directly connected to her pc via a usb connector. Unfortunately the department dont have a very integrated strategy for dealing with shared jobs and so if anything needs printing, one of the other staff will email it to her and then she prints it off becuase she has the printer!. Stoopid isnt it?. I guess what they really need is their own server which is connected to the wider network and all the office pc s are then connected to the office server. That way they could share documents and resources more readily?. That option probably isnt a starter though becuase of the expense and also it would require some setting up!.

So then the question is,given the existing environment,is it still possible to have a printer in that office environment which can be shared and used by all pc users in that office?.

[MovedGoalPosts]

hmm, networking question = networking sub forum not Computers & IT

---------- Post added at 10:34 ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 ----------

They just need an ethernet cable to each PC, and a switch to join the cables together. Assign a fixed IP address to each computer say 192.168.1.xxx (different xxx on each computer), and you have a simple peer to peer network.

Enable file and Printer sharing, share any printers that exist and that's it, everyone can print without annoying other users (untill there's a paper jam).

---------- Post added at 10:36 ---------- Previous post was at 10:34 ----------

Actually, re-reading the post, there is already a network, so each computer is available over it.

Just enable the printer sharing option, making sure the necesary users are given access rights. Any other computers wanting that printer need to run the "add printers" wizard and connect to the shared printer.

[Vlad_Dracul]

Originally Posted by Rob C

hmm, networking question = networking sub forum not Computers & IT

---------- Post added at 10:34 ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 ----------

They just need an ethernet cable to each PC, and a switch to join the cables together. Assign a fixed IP address to each computer say 192.168.1.xxx (different xxx on each computer), and you have a simple peer to peer network.

Enable file and Printer sharing, share any printers that exist and that's it, everyone can print without annoying other users (untill there's a paper jam).

---------- Post added at 10:36 ---------- Previous post was at 10:34 ----------

Actually, re-reading the post, there is already a network, so each computer is available over it.

Just enable the printer sharing option, making sure the necesary users are given access rights. Any other computers wanting that printer need to run the "add printers" wizard and connect to the shared printer.

Yes i was thinking along those lines but they are on a wider network. The situation is that she works at Manchester Uni and the network servers all live in a building which is about a mile down the road. I'm just thinking that the networking paths between each of those office based pc s might be blocked at the server?. They do have a it department so i guess its over to them though they have proved not very usefull in the past!