The login box that never accepts the password is the most hated screen in office printing. It is almost never the printer asking - it is the host PC's accounts, set up in a way Windows cannot accept.
Most offices improvise their way into one of three password habits, and each one manufactures its own error. The host account has no password at all, so Windows blocks the network logon outright. Or the host password was changed last week, and every client is still silently offering the old one Windows saved. Or the whole office shares the owner's admin password, which works - and hands everyone the keys to that PC. This guide replaces all three with one boring, correct arrangement: a dedicated printing account on the host, saved once on every client.
Example patterns. The error each habit produces is different, which is why random password typing never fixes any of them.
With password protected sharing on - the correct setting - Windows demands a real account from the host PC before it shows the printer. Two rules trip people up. First, an account with a blank password cannot log on over the network at all, by design. Second, before asking you, Windows quietly retries the credentials it saved earlier - so a changed password fails silently behind the scenes and the prompt you finally see is already a second failure.
This one step removes the two worst habits at once: nobody needs the owner's personal login, and the account exists only to print, so its password can stay stable while personal passwords change around it.
printuser, with a strong password\\ACCOUNTS-PC from the Run box and double-click the printerACCOUNTS-PC\printuser, so Windows knows which PC's account you meanA password change on the host breaks every saved client login at once - that is expected behaviour, not a new fault. Each client just needs its saved entry replaced: remove the old one in Credential Manager, reconnect, save the new password. For a printing-only account with low rights, many offices deliberately set one strong password and leave it unchanged; never do that with an administrator account, whose password should change like any other.
Watch the account and password setup done live - the part of printer sharing most tutorials skip.
▶️ Watch Full VideoTwo usual reasons: you are typing the client PC's own password instead of the host PC's account, or Windows is silently retrying an old saved password before yours. Remove the saved entry for the host in Credential Manager, then connect and type the host account fresh.
Not for printing. One shared printing account on the host is enough, and it is what most small offices use. Separate accounts matter when you also share files or need to know who printed what.
If the host signs in with a Microsoft account, that email and its password are the network login, and it does work. Most offices still prefer a local printing account, so the owner's personal password never has to be shared with staff.