How to share a printer in Windows 7

With more and more devices being networked, sharing printers has become less common.  However, it is still a practice that is used in some environments.  If you need to share a printer from your Windows 7 computer, this guide will show you exactly how to do that.

Click on the Start button (Windows orb) in the lower left corner of the screen (or press the Windows key on your keyboard).  When the Start menu appears, select Devices and Printers.  Right click on the printer you wish to share.  From the context menu, select Printer Properties.  Select the Sharing tab.

Click the box next to "Share this printer" to place a check mark there.  A default share name will be displayed for your printer, which may be the same as the printer's local name.  You can change this name if you want, or leave it how it is.  If you need to add a 32-bit driver or 64-bit driver (if you are sharing the printer with operating systems that may not use the current driver you have installed) you can do so by clicking the Additional Drivers... button and following the instructions to browse for the other print driver version(s).

Once you have the settings how you want them, click OK at the bottom of the window to close the window and apply the share settings.