HomeTechnicalvista: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied

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vista: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied — 12 Comments

  1. I am on XP in a Windows Server 2003 network – I’m trying to give everyone access to a desktop printer and get “Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server”

    I can see the printer – and get to via browse from the printer setup page. I tried connecting using \computerprinter, but no go.

    Any ideas?

  2. Hi Trish.

    Either the server 2003 has domain settings that are blocking the printer access, or its just a timing issue.

    By timing, I mean if you leave it for a few hours, it just happens to fix itself.

    if you can browse to it, then you should be able to right-click on it and set it up on another PC…

    Given the limited info you provided, I can’t be more specific.

  3. Trigger: When attempt to add a printer the directory you receive the below message.
    Error: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server.
    Hey,
    Hope this makes sense. We were having the same issue and the resolution I found was to create a subnet under Active Directory Sites and Services matching our topology then I associated with our site. Ours was simple enough we only have one subnet for our entire network. This changes can be made live it didnā€™t affect anything from what I could tell. It did take a while for the info to replicate before the clients could transcend the AD topology.
    You can find a helpful link here at expertā€™s exchange
    http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Peripherals/Printers_Scanners/Q_22603791.html#a19207617
    The other thing I did was to edit the local policy on our one printer server it hosts about (20printers). The change made was enabling the ā€œCheck published stateā€ and setting it to check at 1hr intervals. You can get to the local policy by:
    Go to run type ā€œgpedit.mscā€
    Under Computer Configuration expand Administrative Templates
    Then explain Printers and enable the policy ā€œCheck published stateā€.

    The problem I think we had is our printers are on the 192.168.0 subnet and the workstations are on 192.168.1 Iā€™m not sure when it broke but this fixed it for us. I believe client machines use the AD sites and subnets to navigate to the printer via the right subnet. Which is outside of DNS which is why we could add the printer any other way i.e. \servernameprinter or \xxx.xxx.xxx.xxxprinter out side of AD.
    Hope this helps!
    Thanks,
    Michael
    ā€œFreely you have received, freely give.ā€

  4. I had the exact same error message as Michael but for a different reason.

    Quote: Trigger: When attempt to add a printer the directory you receive the below message.
    Error: Windows cannot connect to the printer. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server.

    It turned out that the problem was that the server wasnt resolving properly as it was set up in the DNS system with a different suffix from that of the AD suffix! Stupid really, but that’s the problem with having a network full of boxes that are not all migrated to AD and using a DNS system other than Microsoft.

    Hope this helps others that are unlucky enough to have these same symptoms.
    šŸ˜€

  5. Coo, I’ve been bashing my head against a wall for ages over this and your solution worked perfectly. Thanks!

  6. I have a Hp lj printer that is on a print server (MS Server 2003), it is connected via a local port (IP) it does work but when some one tries to map to it it gives me access denied. The security options are set to full access but still cannot map to the printer . Help!!!!

  7. Thank you so much!! I was spending most of the night trying to get my new laptop to connect to my network Minolta Di351f! I just printed my test page, and am ready to rock and roll! I’ll be sure to donate asa I get my next paycheck!!