Trying to "hook up" a wireless printer and need help!

Factual Questions
1

Let me start by saying I am NOT computer savvy at all.

I had a desktop and earlier this year I bought a router and set up a wireless network so I could play Netflix on my Wii (some very nice folks on the board helped me out). A couple of months ago I bought a laptop because my desktop was dying a slow death. I don’t use the desktop anymore unless I really need to because it is so slow starting up (it’s about 8 years old). I got the laptop on the network with no problem.

Today I bought a wireless printer but can’t seem to get it added to the network. I’m not sure what to do. Is it having problems because I don’t broadcast teh SSDI (not sure that’s the correct acronym)? If so, what other options do I have besides firing up the desktop (the router is loaded on the desktop–again, not sure if that’s the proper terminology)?

And a fringe bonus question…should I remove the router software from the desktop and load it onto the laptop so I can log in if I need to?

2

Sorry for the serial posting but I got it to work! It was the SSID thing. I feel proud…

But I still have the question of what to do about the software being on the nearly-dead desktop. When I turned it on to log in to temporarily change the settings, it literally took 18 minutes to boot up. I think I need to move it but how would I do that? Uninstall it from the desktop then reinstall it on the laptop? Will that kill my network (causing me to have to add everything back)?

3

If you want definitive answers you would probably need to tell what model of router you have, but I think in general you could just put the software on your laptop and not have any problem. You wouldn’t even need to uninstall it from the desktop.

4

Oh yeah…it’s a NetGear N300.

My desktop is a OLD Dell (from 2004) that runs XP and my laptop is new and runs Windows 7.

5

First off, a tip: You may be able to hide the SSID again, now that the printer is set up.

And the quickest way for a novice to make an old computer go faster would be to go back to the defaults, using the restore disk. Copy off anything you need (that you don’t have backed up), then reboot with the install CD in the drive. Tell it to wipe everything and start over. Then install only the updates, and remove any programs that start up with the computer. After that, be very stingy with installing new software, using the old stuff if you can. Probably the only thing I would upgrade would be Firefox (or Chrome) and Flash. Otherwise, stick with 2004 software on a 2004 computer.