Recently we wanted to print something from an old computer running Windows 2000 (yes, we have all kinds of dinosaurs in our office zoo) to a printer connected to a laptop that was recently upgraded to Windows 10. In the past, all we needed to do was to share the printer on the laptop, and then add it as a network printer on the Windows 2000 computer, and it would work beautifully.
Password-protect and hide personal files and folders with Folder Guard for Windows 10,8,7, and XP.
User rating: 
4.7/5
Purchase
or download a free trial. Read more...
This time, however, when attempting to add the network printer to the Windows 2000 computer, we received the following message: "Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied." We tried to do the usual troubleshooting: checked the security settings of the shared printer, checked the sharing settings, made sure that the file and printer sharing was enabled on the Windows 10 laptop, all was in order, yet the Windows 2000 computer was still denied access to the shared printer.
After restarting both computers a few times and repeating the sharing/connecting steps, but the same error message appeared every time. So we tried something different, and it worked. We decided to share our solution here, hoping it could be of help to someone else:
1. On the computer to which the printer is connected (in our case it was the Windows 10 laptop), share the printer as usual, and when sharing it, set up the share name that is easy to type in. For example, in our case the long name of the printer was "Epson Stylus Photo R200", but we shared it with the name EpsonR200: (using a simple name like that should make it easier to enter it later on)
2. On the computer from which you want to connect to this printer (in our case it was the Windows 2000 computer) use the built-in Add Printer wizard and choose the 'Add Local Printer' option. (If your computer runs Windows 10, you can find this wizard on the Devices - Printers and Scanners page of the Windows Settings window)
3. Press Next, and on the next page choose the 'Create a new port' option and make sure the 'Local port' option is selected:
4. When you press Next, Windows will prompt you to enter the port name. Enter the UNC name of the shared printer, in the format: //computername/sharedname . In our case, the computer name of the Windows 10 laptop was laptop, and we had previously set up the shared name of the printer as EpsonR200 (see Step 1 above), so we entered the port name as:
If you don't know the network name of your computer, you can find it out as follows: right-click on the This PC folder (or Computer) in Explorer or some other file manager, and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. On that page, look for the 'computer name' text. That's the name you need to enter instead of 'laptop' in our example. Be sure to use the name of the computer that has the printer attached to it, not the one from which you are trying to connect to the printer through the network!
Encrypt and password-protect external drives with USBCrypt software for Windows 10,8,7, and XP.
User rating: 4.7/5
Purchase
or download a free trial. Read more...
Next, Windows will probably ask you to select the printer make and model, install its drivers, etc. Keep providing the information that the wizard requires, according to your specific printer. When done, Windows should add the new printer to the computer, and you should be able to use it to print files. The procedure described above worked for us, hopefully it will work for you, too.
Happy printing!
If you want to link to this article, you can use this HTML code: <a href="http://www.winability.com/windows-cannot-connect-to-the-printer-access-is-denied/">Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied.</a>
Read more
- How to stop Windows 10 from using thumbnail preview icons for folders
- How to hide pictures from the Photos app in Windows 10
- How to save Windows Spotlight photos to your computer
- How to move the OneDrive folder to an encrypted drive
- Windows 10 fails to upgrade? Here is how to fix it.
- How to stop Microsoft Edge from hijacking PDF files
- Preventing installations of specific programs with Folder Guard
- Folder Guard licensing explained
- Speed up the updates of the network folders
- Make your Windows laptop work as a Wi-Fi access point
- How to stop automatic updates on Windows 10
- Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied.
- Migrating encrypted data from TrueCrypt to USBCrypt
- Enhancing a photo CD collection with PhotoLauncher
- “The Microsoft account service is unavailable right now. Try again later.”
- Using DiffMerge as the external tool of AB Commander
- How to erase the icon and/or thumbnail cache in Windows 10 and 8
- Transferring images between your PC and an Android device: Part 2
- Transferring images between your PC and an Android device: Part 1
- Case study: Using SoftDetective to suppress Corel Guide sign-in prompt
- Using junction points to change the iTunes backup folder location
- How to tell if my Windows is 32- or 64-bit?
- How do I stop Windows from rearranging my desktop icons?
- Organize your photo library with the Rename tool of AB Commander
- Windows does not offer the NTFS format option? Here is how to bring it back.
- Encrypt Firefox profile with USBCrypt
- Restarting Windows 10 and Windows 8 in the safe mode
- Integrating AB Commander with Universal Viewer
- How we host our web sites
- How to delete a protected EFI disk partition with Windows 10, 8, or 7
- Using Folder Guard to protect from the “social engineering” attacks
- How to erase Windows login password if you forget it
- How to unhide a folder hidden with Folder Guard
- How to repair Windows desktop icons with AB Commander
- Slow network in Windows 7 Virtual PC? Speed it up!
- How to show drive letters first in AB Commander and Windows Explorer
- What is my IP address?
- Amazon Cloud Drive offers free 5 GB online storage
- Why can’t I copy large files over 4GB to my USB flash drive or SD card?
- Test the strength of your password with USBCrypt
- Setting up the external text editor for AB Commander
- How to restrict Internet Explorer from downloading programs from the Internet
- Personal vs business license for USBCrypt
- Use Folder Guard to restrict access to Control Panel
- Compare MySecretFolder and Folder Guard
- Hide folders with Folder Guard
- Compare ActiveExit to WINEXIT
- Lock folders and drives with passwords
- Locking access to the external drives with Folder Guard
- Protecting Dropbox folder with USBCrypt
- How to set up Folder Guard to stop downloading from the Internet
- Is “Wipe the content” the same as “Secure Delete”?
- Can USBCrypt encrypt the C: drive?
- Make it easier to return your lost encrypted drive
- USBCrypt for users of Microsoft® Office
- Start programs elevated from a batch file
- How to make elevated programs recognize network drives
- How to disable hibernation with AB Commander
- Using names and labels to organize USBCrypt drives
- How to password-protect a USB flash drive
- Always have a backup of your important files
Thank You !!
Worked for me to share printer connected to windows 10 with windows XP.
I really appreciate you posting this. I had a similar problem when I shared printers on an 8.1 box and it took forever to find a solution. After upgrading 8.1 to 10, all the memories came flooding back. This and similar issues seem to be posted everywhere, with few solutions.
Thaks/gracias!!
I was getting mad about this problem until i saw your post!
Este error me estaba volviendo loco. Gracias por tu post!
After spending hours searching on the internet for a solution I finally found this post.
Thanks a lot guys,worked perfectly!
Thank you. Worked like a charm!
This solution worked for me. Thanks for sharing this with us!
Good job!
Thanks – I was going a little crazy with this! Worked great connecting an old XP computer to my new windows 10.
Thank you for taking the time to share this solution. You are a life saver!
Thank you! This worked perfectly to connect a HP LaserJet 1022 on USB001, Windows 10 to an older ASUS Computer still running well on XP.
Thank you so much for posting this fix. This worked perfectly. I was at my last resort when I found your fix. Thank you again for helping.
Thank you! I found numerous queries about this problem on the net. Yours was the only one I could actually understand.
Thank you. Worked like a charm!
Nice. Worked well for me as well. Quick and clean.
Of note: Our situation was similar in that we were previously able to print between the two computers, but when the Win 7 machine updated to Win 10 we lost it. Therefore when using your technique the Win XP machine actually recognized that it already had drivers for the printer, so no new drivers were required. Small favors.
Thanks again!
This worked perfectly for my situation (Win XP trying to connect to the printer connected to a Win 10 computer). Everything I’ve tried so far yielded nothing. Even though my computer was a Win XP, the steps were essentially the same.
I wanted to thank you so much, for providing a real solution. Be Blessed.
Grace and Peace,
jerry
Thank you dear.
You are perfect
Has anybody tried oposite way? My printer is connected to xp machine, and my laptop win10 can’t get connection. I have other machines on the network running xp and win7, all prunting without problems.
Thank you for your kind help ^_^
Worked great with me.
windows e seu modo de ser seu prórpio concorrente, por isso que esta perdendo tantos clientes. obrigado pela ajuda.
Thanks guy, you was saved me
Didn’t work. in step 4 after entering details in Portname window and click Ok. access denied pops up.
After a long and painful Windows 10 upgrade, having performed this same procedure before and having my printer working fine (good advice, thanks), it stopped working. The error message is as follows: “Network path not found” or something like this, since my OS is in spanish. Any ideas?
Antonio: I had the same problem after a recent Windows 10 update. This procedure only worked for me when I used back-slash characters instead of the forward-slash shown in the above “Local port”
I used: \\computer name\printer
Instead of the:
//computer name/printer
Shown in the instructions above.
Hope this helps!
Worked great, thanks!!
worked great!
Thank you guys. Worked like a charm!
you sir are the best :) thank you very much XD it worked.
This was indeed a life saver. Thank you so very much!
Thank you so much for this. Googled and tried so many solutions, but nothing worked. This worked on the first attempt.
Thank you so much… Cheers!!!
Fabulous answer – not found anywhere else, and Microsoft doesn’t know about it!
Worked great, thanks!!