Cisco-Linksys WPSM54G Wireless-G Print Server with Multifunction Printer Support

In my home, I had a very old PC that we used as a print server. It also had a large disk drive that we used for backups. This old computer was never used as a PC. It was big, ugly, and in the way. I bought a new Linksys router (WRT-600) with a USB disk connection, and connected the backup disk to the router. If I could find a wireless print server, I could ditch the old computer.After reading all the reviews, I was skeptical that a good unit was even available. But after several months of successful use, I must say this unit works flawlessly with my HP Laserjet 1022 and the 3 laptop PCs in my house. Unlike many home wireless products, the Wireless-G Print Server runs very cool.As several reviewers have pointed out, you must make the printer work on your PC before installing the Print Server. Since all the PCs in the house are laptops, bringing the PCs to the printer to install the driver was quite easy.I have worked with several Linksys and Netgear wireless products. This was the first product for which the "Easy Install" program actually worked. The program found my router and connected the Print Server. Then it installed a server program to my PCs. The server program sits in my task bar. I really don't know very much about it, because it's always green. Installation was flawless for one Vista PC and two XP PCs. Linksys includes every cable you need, even the Ethernet cable that you use just once for a few minutes while configuring the Print Server to the router. That's a nice touch.Here's my caveats.* I don't have a scanner or fax, so I don't use those features. I can't say how they work.* The USB driver for the LaserJet 1022 is very simple. It doesn't, for example, try to tell me how much ink I have left.* I didn't have any problems with the Easy Install. I have no idea how well the manual installation would work or how good tech support would be. I can say, though, that I had a good experience with tech support for my Linksys WRT-600 when the auto-install progam didn't work.* Finally, I am in a semi-rural location. I don't use WEP, or WPA, or MAC filtering; and I do broadcast my SSID. So I can't say from personal experience how using these security features would affect operation or installation. I did change the router's IP address from the default value. That did not create any problems at all.I can't address all the issues others have raised in these reviews. But I can say that the unit works well for me. The printer is always available from all my PCs.

It is working great and does exactly what I wanted it to.So now for the bad news. It took many hours for me to get this working.This was designed to be used for Windows XP. Getting this to work on windows 7 took a lot of internet searching.1. I bought this "used like new" so when I got it, it had someone else's password set up on it. So it was completely unusable. After searching the internet I found that I just needed to hold down the reset button for 30 seconds. Got it working. Check2. You have to run the set up while it is connected to your router via ethernet cable. So I spent a lot of time unhooking the server and printer and going back and forth between the room it was to be put in and where my router is. Wouldn't be much of a problem, but I ran the set up many times until I finally figured out how to get it working with windows 7.3. Wireless conectivity is awful with the original firmware that the unit comes with. Updating the firmware requires the printer server and your set-up computer to both be plugged into your router via ethernet cable. This was the scariest part of the whole ordeal. It would lose connection even while connected with a ethernet cable. Lol. So I was very worried I would ruin the unit updating the firmware if something went wrong. Linksys does still have the firmware and instructions on their website, so that is a plus. After the firmware update, it works great.4. Now the worst part. When you run set up on your computer that has windows 7 it gives a message that it is not supported and will not let you install. So download the newest driver on linksys site and save it to a usb flash drive to use on all your computers to save time. It will need to be unzipped. Unzip to your desktop, do not just click open, because you will need to change the set up.exe and it will not work if you just click open.So once unzipped, right click on the setup.exe and hit properties. Click on the compatibility tab. Check the box to change your compatibility to vista service pack 2. Now it will install correctly on your Windows 7 machine. That is the easiest way to make this work. Thank you internet.5. Before you run the set up on each computer, make sure that computer has the printer drivers on it that you will be using.Other than that, it really goes quickly if you didn't have to figure out how to clear out someone else's personal password and update firmware and find a workaround for windows 7.I love not having to boot up a computer just to print wirelessly anymore.

After reading other reviews here I anticipated problems getting this added to my network but no, configuration was easy and fast and problem-free. (I'm using it in a hard-wired configuration, not wireless.) All of our Windows 7 clients found and configured to the device easily. I'm not sure how much buffer memory this unit holds, but it's enough to contain our usual (simple) print jobs. One area where the unit seems to fall a little short is when multiple print jobs are sent to it. I noticed this when trying to send several one-page PDF documents to it one after another, kind of rapid-fire. Some of the jobs simply never produced output - weird, since there were no queue errors either. So far I haven't had any problems with multiple users hitting the device at once - probably just good luck with timing. The configuration screens hint that this could be an issue because there are delay settings for port release following job acceptance. All of those concurrence issues could be handled by using an external queue. On our network, I used to use a minimally configured Windows server running as a virtual machine dedicated to this purpose. The server-based queue is offline now and the jury's still out on whether I'll need to bring it back to solve any lingering concurrence issues. Bottom line: I needed a box to interface a shared USB printer to our network when an older (same brand) device failed following many years of 24/7 service. The wireless link will provide flexibility when/if I need to relocate the printer. Configuration is fast and easy. And the price is certainly right.