Sorry if I posted this in the wrong spot, but I'm not sure if this is Hardware or OS related. Please move this wherever you think it belongs (sorry MODs) but here goes:

I've been doing a side job for a local business and they have a small network of about 10 computers. It's a completely mixed network as it is actually 3 businesses (or more) and everyone owns their own systems. There are 3 Windows 2000 SP4s, and the rest are Windows XP SP2 machines. There are 2 printers, one of which is connected over ethernet that has zero problems...except for mechanical ones. it's aging and its just for backup. There is a 2nd printer which has gremlins. ALOT of gremlins. This is gonna be a fairly long post, because i'm going to tell you how i came into it, and where i took it.

Well the printer was connected thru USB to an Ethernet translater, some HP device i can't remember the device ID for, but anyhoo, it was USB going to the box which shot it over to ethernet. that was hooked up directly to the router and had a static IP address. Everything in the office except for 1 laptop is connected via Wireless. All different types of cards, so i'm not dealing with anything thats similar, except for the fact that they all run a version of windows. They were having alot of problems printing. All of the computers were hooked up the same way, via the Add printer wizard, specifying the IP address of the printer and printer name. like a SMB share. From what i gathered, there was some kind of interruption in the wireless and the computers link to it was being broken. under the printer status, it would just say "Opening" repairing their wireless connection didn't solve the problem. and neither would a reboot. well most of the time anyway. random computers would reconnect every once and awhile after a reboot, but not in any identifiable rhyme or reason. The only thing that would work was deleting the printer, and adding it again, reinstalling drivers and then it would work for about 24 hours. sometimes as little as 5 minutes.

Here's what I did to fix the problem.

I took the ethernet out of the loop all together. I connected the printer to the ethernet connected laptop directly, and shared it directly off of it. That laptop is Running Windows 2000 Professional SP4. I made all of the desktop computers that are there run on a standard generic user account to ease any issues with permissions. The computers were all added to the same workgroup and all have similar Computer Names. The printer was added to these computers thru SMB share thru the workgroup. At first it was using the Computer name\ printer. i.e. \\Server\Printer .

That worked for a little while. So then I put the Laptop on a static IP, and then i tried mapping it statically. i.e. \\192.168.X.X\printer . This had been working fine for a while, probably about a month. and now i'm getting daily phone calls again. I get paid per time i show up, so I'm trying to stop them from calling me. I'm at a loss as to why this is happening. Let me give you a little bit more backup information.

This issue has happened to all of the computers, but at seperate times.

This issue happens regardless of configuration.

Reboots sometimes fix the issue, but sometimes dont. (i think they should as they should re-establish connectivity to the computer) While deleting the printer share and adding it again will fix the problem.

Printer will be in the constant state of "Opening" in red.

So can anyone help me with a possible solution? I have zero IT budget, and i'm hoping for quick in painless. I'm doing this on my own time and i don't care if they pay me. I just want them to stop calling me. But i still want to get paid to show up and set up new computers, or do anything thats easy money. So just ignoring them is not really an option. I've googled for batch scripts that could do it for me to now luck. Any insights that don't require me to lay cable or buy a wireless print share or anything like that? Any windows settings or wireless settings i can tweak? Sorry for the long post, but this one is really driving me nuts. It's been going on for about 4 months now.