So a neighbor asks me to help hook her daughter’s laptop to their home printer. The laptop was bought as a mandatory item in a private high school. When I get there I first try to find out what kind of hardware it has installed. Right click my computer, properties, then I am told I am denied access. OK, I’ll go through control panel. No control panel. No run button.
I figure, forget about exploring the hardware. After spending 45 minutes downloading the printer driver on their internet connected PC, and burning it to a CD, I install it. Printer won’t work. Seems you need to be an administrator to add a peripheral. I am begining to wonder if the wireless router I talked her into getting will even be able to work with this thing.
My main question is, using windows XP Professional, is there a way to hook up a printer without being an administrator. If not, what do I tell them to tell the person in charge of the system to change so that a student can hook up the computer to peripherals at home. It seems obvious to me that the person in charge of the system itself has limited knowledge and has created the type of envoronment a company would place on it’s employees so that equipment they own can be used only exactly as they wish. I assume there is a middle ground that allows the school to control the computers when they access the schools intranet, and yet will allow them to function as a reasonable home computer off campus.
Any advice?