Hello! I've been trying lately to share my printer (HP Deskjet 815C) to a Windows XP machine on the network. I'm using the printer in Slackware 11.0 via CUPS, and I have a file sharing network enabled with SAMBA, working perfectly. I just wanted to share my printer but after many research and attempts I could only make the printer appear on windows xp network places but without any use.

The main problem consists in the following: I'm able to add the printer in windows machine, but I can't print anything and when I open the printer properties, it says on the title bar "Access denied, unable to connect".

If someone could help me, please, I will be very grateful.

I had the same problem in openSUSE 10.2. I cannot remember where I found the solution for this problem so I cannot give credit to where I found the source but here's how I solved that problem.
Edit the /etc/samba/smb.conf file with your fav text editor. Navigate to the section labeled "[printers]". Add or modify the following two entries under that section so that it looks exactly as shown below.

browseable = Yes
use client driver = Yes

restart your smb server and your CUPS server. As the root user I use the following command.

/etc/init.d/smb restart
/etc/init.d/cups restart

Those command may be different in your distro. If that solution does not work also try the following.

Modify your /etc/samba/smb.conf file and navigate to the section named [global]. Modify the file to reflect the below option.

cups options = raw

again restart your smb server and your CUPS server.

I hope that helps. Have fun.

Well, this simple line: browseable = Yes , solved the "Access Denied" problem. However now I try to print from windows, or try a testing page, but no response comes from my printer. I check CUPS web interface and no jobs are active. I guess Samba isn't sending the request to CUPS. What should I look for to solve this?

By the way, here is my current smb.conf:

Ok, my suggestion to you, if you have not done so already, is to setup a static ip configuration within your network as I have found this to be the most reliable way of setting up a network containing a network printer. For instance the machine I am working on right now has a static ip of 192.168.1.3 my windows 2000 box is set up with a static ip of 192.168.1.128, and finally my print server is set up with a static ip of 192.168.1.4. So, on my print server box I modified the /etc/samba/smb.conf file under the section [global], as shown in the following, to allow both ip addresses 192.168.1.3, 192.168.1.128. Heres the option for that.

"hosts allow = 192.168.1.3, 192.168.1.128"

I then restarted my smb server and CUPS server and that allowed the remote machines to print to the print server. Let me know how that goes.

It is the same as don't having "hosts allow", I was already able to access the network from my windows machine, see the printer, connect to the preinter successfully, it just doesn't print what I request to and jobs aren't added either.

Did you try changing the driver for the printer in Windows XP? For instance I have an officejet T45 and in windows 2000 I had to change the driver to officejet R45.

Sorry for answering too late, my life is a bit busy. Well, today I just tried printing again and it did it! I don't know why, maybe one of the computers needed to be restarted, I only know that now it works. Thank you very much for your help, I'll never forget the browseable=yes.

I'm glad that it worked out for you. You're welcome.