Installing A Printer

Installing a printer with moden hardware is really a painless process these days in XP. With modern hardware I mean a USB 2.0 printer and a computer capable of detecting USB. Windows does a great job of detecting and automatically installing a printer once it's plugged into the USB port. This tutorial give step-by-step instructions on how to instal a printer with and without an Installation CD.

Install A Printer With Its CD

With any USB device, it's often best to install the contents of the CD before you plug in the device. So if you have a new printer, and the printer came with a disk, insert the CD into the appropriate drive and let it run. If the CD doesn't autostart, you may need to navigate to My Computer to open it manually.

Once the CD is installed, plug in the USB cable. The hardware will be detected by XP and the software drivers you previously installed will be loaded for the printer. The CD probably also came with miscellaneous printing software and tools, so feel free to continue installing those if you haven't already.

Install A Printer Without A CD

If you have an older printer, or if you have misplaced the installation CD, you can still install the printer in XP. There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. You can visit the manufacturer of the printer and look for something like Support and Downloads on their site. You should be able to find the driver and download it to your PC. For ease of finding, place the download on your Desktop. Open and run the download.

2. You can also just plug it in an see what happens. XP can probably already recognize your printer and it will automatically install the necessary software for you. This is a last resort, however, because the website will probably have the most up to date drivers.

1. Share Your Printer Over The Network
2. How to Install a Network Printer
3. Kill Print Jobs Stuck in Queue
4. Printer Maintenance Kit