Developer Forum

I'm testing a configuration that will allow me to share files and
printers over the Internet (WAN) between XP&2000 systems. This will
eventually be done over a VPN, but here's the basic configuration I'm
having problems with.

I've opened up port 445 on the firewall and can connect to the remote
machine using the \\x.x.x.x\ notation. I'm able to share files just fine
and browsing works, but when I click on a printer I get an error
message: Unable to open connection to printer (not exact text but close).

I also ran the test w/ all ports open on the firewall, just to see if
something was blocked, but that didn't work either. It works fine on the
LAN (same subnet).

Anyone know what's wrong? I'm thinking it has to do with XP's "point to
print" trying to automatically install a driver but gets denied somehow.
The confirmation box to do that doesn't appear like it normally does on
the LAN when you first use the printer, instead I just get the error.

I verified that NetBIOS over TCP/IP is on for both machines. Any other
thoughts?

Thanks in advance.