Attaching to network printer without directory or dns assistance

If you visit another company's office and connect your laptop to their windows network, you'll find that you aren't a member of their domain which can make a lot of typical office activities a bit more difficult to achieve. Printing is a biggie.

First step is to find out from someone on the domain what the ip address of the printer is. Get them to bring up the Printer Properties dialog and go to the Sharing tab. The printer will have a sharing name. Pinging the sharing name from the command prompt will give you the ip address.

Now you can Add Printer. Here's where is gets a bit counterintuitive: you select Local Printer (not Network Printer - I always thought local meant directly connected to your PC, but there are more options in this wizard path than I realised). Select Create a New Port and choose Standard TCP/IP Port. Enter the IP address (the port will be completed for you).

Then you have to select the Manufacturer and Model. My experience has been that if I choose something in the ballpark then plain old document printing will usually work. e.g. the model HP Laserjet 4000 Series PS provides printing for a HP Laserjet 4345 mfp printer, but its other fancy features may be unavailable.

The guidance out there on the web is to choose PS first followed by PCL6 followed by PCL if confronted with multiple similar choices.