i changed the addresses on the xpvm to be the same as the 7. still not able to see 7's printers.
So you entered a static IP? What IPs did you use? If you did it right, you should be able to ping the Win7host via IP.

ping 10.1.10.192

I didn't mean to recommended PRINTFIL, but that's your call. My point was for you to change the VM to NIC instead of NAT. The NET USE command should have worked to forward your printing. The problem is your XP doesn't see the shared printer.

Hmm. Not sure why else you would be required to enter a password if you didn't set one. control userpasswords2 has worked for me. Are you sure you did it correctly?
http://www.mydigitallife.info/enable...to-windows-xp/