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Wow, my tiny little home network is getting more professional attention than its had in its 10+ years of existence! -- It's always on PCs. All computers think they belong to a workgroup named Mariners. -- The printer connected to Basement is almost always turned off. The printer on Kitchen, and Kitchen computer, are almost always turned on. -- Yup, they are HP printers. -- Kitchen is always reachable via its Wi-Fi connection. Basement is wired into the hub, always on, always reachable -- Laptop is single user and so is Basement -- After the default printer has changed to Basement, Laptop shows the Kitchen printer online as well as the Basement one, even though the Basement printer is powered down. If I print to Kitchen printer or switch default, it never fails, whether Kitchen is in Standby or not. Only time Kitchen printer appears offline is when Kitchen computer is powered down. -- No third party nuthin. -- Pure XP network, no WIn 2000. -- Yes, the printers in question are both HPs (very good, Carnak!) Thanks, all! I'm sure you have bigger fish to fry, but this is a fun puzzle... /rich On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:22:26 -0500, John Resotko <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hmmm... just the usual questions for troubleshooting: > > 1) are the printers in the Home Network on network print servers, or > are they connected to "always on" PCs that are using Windows connection > sharing to share them across a workgroup? Is a workgroup defined? If > so, are all PCs connected to those printers on the same Workgroup name? > > 2) if the printers are on solo network servers, when was the lastime > you upgraded the firmware in the stand-alone print servers? Are all > PCs, laptops, etc up to date on the latest Windows patches. > > 3) troublehooting on the network wire connected to the Kitchen > printer... is it ok, no faults? > > 4) on the PC/laptop that switches the default printer back to Basement, > how many user profiles are on it? Could the "switch" be caused by > another user profile using Basement as it's default printer that has > full Administrative rights to the PC in question? Could the profile > switch be resetting the default printer and overridding previous > setting. > > 5) any third party print managers, print utilities, or nifty printing > software on the PC that keeps switching default printers? You might > want to install a utility that tells you what runs on startup, then shut > down those startup programs one at a time in case any of them might be > altering the default setting. > > Good luck, it sounds like one of those nasty intermittant programs > that's gonna eat a lot of time and effort to try and track down. > Remember, when it's not cost effective to do that, backup the data on > the quirky PC, wipe out and restore the OS, then reapply patches and put > your data back. In the long run, that can sometimes be the quickes > solution rather than chasing ghosts in the machine.... > > /John R. > > >>> Richard Wiggins <[log in to unmask]> 03/31 9:27 AM >>> > This is a curiosity not a crisis but I thought maybe someone with deep > Windows knowledge would know the answer. > > Imagine a home network. All Windows computers. Domainless. A > computer named Basement has a laser printer, as does a computer named > Kitchen. Sometimes a computer named Laptop prints to Basement, > sometimes to Kitchen's printer. > > No matter how many times I set the default printer from Basement to > Kitchen, at some later time, perhaps after a reboot, Laptop reverts to > Basement as its default printer. > > I wouldn't think this has anything to do with the browse master > negotiations, but Basement is the oldest computer on the network. > > Any theories? Thanks, > > /rich >