Cannot print from windows 11 Home to a shared printer on a windows 10 Home PC

Question

Hi,

I have a shared brother HL2140 printer connected through USB to a Windows 10 PC.

I have two Windows 10 laptops and I'm able to print from these laptops using the shared brother printer.

The problem is with my windows 11 laptop that cannot connect to that printer.

From my windows 11 laptop, when I click on Network in File Explorer, I see the Windows 10 PC shared folders as well as the shared printer. I can access those folders and the files in them but when I try to connect to the printer I get the following error message:" windows couldn't connect to the printer. check the printer name and try again."

I added "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PrintRpcAuthnLevelPrivacyEnabled = 0" on my windows 10 and I tried the following methods I found on the web on my windows 11 but none of them fixed the problem:

1-Edit group policy, and under Administrative Templates | Printers, Configure RPC connection settings by choosing enabled and under options choosing RPC over named pipes

(I was able to use gpedit on my home edition after I enabled it using the following:

FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~*.mum") DO (DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F")
FOR %F IN ("%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~*.mum") DO (DISM /Online /NoRestart /Add-Package:"%F")

2-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\RPC, double-click the RpcOverTCP key and change the Value Data to zero (0) and then click OK. Double-click the RpcOverNamedPipes key and change the Value Data to 1. Click OK.

3-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PrintRpcAuthnLevelPrivacyEnabled = 0

4-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\PointAndPrintRestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators = 0

5-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PrintRpcAuthnLevelPrivacyEnabled = 0

6- install the complete software of the printer

could you help me figuring out what I have missed or if there are other methods, I'm not aware of?

* Changed to a question

***moved from Windows / Windows 11 / Files, folders, and storage***

Answer 1

Hello,

Based on your understanding of this issue, it is recommended that you try the following methods to see if they work:

Try this on windows 10

1. Enter the Network and Sharing Center and click Change advanced sharing settings.
2. In the All Networks section, list Open password-protected shares
3. Press Windows, then type Login Options, click Password, type your password

Try this on windows 11

4. win+r, type the printer server IP or server name, enter the ID and password
5. After the shared printer is displayed, right-click and connect

Best regards

Zunhui

Answer 2

Hi Zunhui

Thank you for your reply!

I have enabled the password for sharing on Windows 10 and created a local user account and gave him admin rights. By doing so, I had to enter those credentials from the other windows 10 laptops to be able to print.

The problem with my windows 11 is that it gave me the following message: the credentials supplied are not sufficient to access the printer do you want to specify new credentials?

when I click on yes, it asked me for the username and password again and if I enter the same ones I will get the same message.

Answer 3

Hello,

You can try the following steps on Windows 11 to see if that resolves the issue:

1. Press win + R keys and enter gpedit.msc to launch Local Group Policy Editor.
2. Find the node "Computer Configuration-Administrative Templates-Network-Lanman Workstation". In the content area on the right, you'll see the "Enable unsafe guest login" policy setting. The status is "Not configured".
3. Double click on the "Enable unsafe guest logins" policy setting, change the status to "Enabled" and click the OK button.

Best regards

Zunhui