Sharing Files and Printers

Sharing a printer... In a nutshell
Here's part of what Smart Computing has to say about sharing printers.
To share a printer over a network, your network must be configured and working. If you haven’t set up your network, open the Start menu, select Help And Support, and select Networking And The Web...

For secure printer sharing, your host computer (the computer that has the printers attached to it, sometimes called the print server) should be running WinXP SP2 (Service Pack 2)...

Although the host computer should be using WinXP SP2, the other computers on your network can operate with Windows 98/Me/XP using the methods discussed here...

I imagine that you can replace WinXP SP2 with Vista. Perhaps with some adjustments. :-)

Smart Computing also has a nice article about file sharing.