I just got a new printer/scanner/fax dealie... I'm on my laptop upstairs, and want to print to my printer downstairs which is hooked up to my tower computer... I can print from there, but not remotely. I'm getting "RPC Server is unavailable" error. Can anyone offer any assistance? Danke!
What OS is on both systems (probably, XP?) At what point are you getting the error? Are you to the point where you're trying to print something from the laptop, or just trying to connect to the printer? I'll boot my system into XP and see what that error means. It's possible to do what you want, but sometimes there's a lot of little things that need to be set up right.
thanks man!!! Yes, we're running XP on both. My brother in law was here last night and he set up the connection, I don't know much about this stuff, obviously. My wife got the error when I tried to print some text from a notepad. I then tried to print a webpage, and nothing happened at all. I clicked File, Print Preview, made sure the right printer was selected and then print. The little print window came up (pages, quantity, that kind of thing) I clicked print... Nothing. Maybe I'll just have him over again to look at it again. It doesn't seem like something simple.
Ok, so whatever computer is giving you that error... Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. Then open Services and Applications, then Services. Then in the list of services, look for Remote Procedure Call (RPC), see what the status is, If it doesn't say Started, right-click on that service and choose Start. If it doesn't start, post up whatever error message you get. Or, if you're comfortable on the command line, just run the command "net start RpcSs" If the service starts up without error, try printing again and see if it works.
I got there, there are two. Remote Procedure Call and Remote Procedure Call Locator. Call was on, Locator was not. I turned it on and will try it again. I typed it into the command prompt and it says "the requested service has already been started.
Ok, I don't think the locator service needs to be running. So, is Remote Procedure call running on both systems then? Are you still getting that error when you try to print?
I only checked on the laptop - this is the only one I can't print from yet. I don't get the message when I try to print a webpage, just from the Notepad. Should I check the Remote Procedure Call on the tower? *edit* I just started the Locator on the tower, same error.
Hrm, it's been awhile since I did any printer sharing with XP. I assume you're "sharing" the printer on the computer it's plugged in to? How did you install the printer on the second computer? You'll need to make sure file and print sharing is installed and enabled on both machines, and that the printer is shared correctly. IIRC, the only way I have gotten that type of setup to work is installing the printer using the "host" computer name.
So, the service is running on both systems it looks like. I'm assuming it worked at least once when it was originally set up. And Bullwinkle is right about needing to have the sharing set up on both systems, but you wouldn't have been able to install the printer on the laptop if it wasn't. So, go to start->run on the laptop and type "\\towercomputername" where towercomputername is the name of the tower computer on the network. I'm thinking there might be a login you have to enter before the laptop can "see" the shared printer. Otherwise yeah get your brother-in-law back out there. Or I've been meaning to buy some of that duct vmax stuff from ya one of these days, if I can get out there sometime I can take a look at it for ya.
just go and setupt he printer on the main pc to share... or in the setups on the laptop add printer and track it down to your pc... if I can work mine out you can... ha ha ha
You are using two different usernames on the computers. Make sure both have BOTH usernames and passwords. If you log in with Bob on one and Jan on another, make sure both have BOB and JAN with the same passwords. Make sure they are in the everyone or users group. That'll be enough.
Or I think it would work to enable the guest account on the tower system. Are these running xp home or pro?
Thanks for all of the suggestions guys!!! I REALLY appreciate it. I was working on it a bit last night before bed because my wife needed to print some stuff for work. I'm not at home anymore, and will go through these when I get there and see if I can figure it out. Thanks again for the help!!!
