Notice the title of the column is "Recommended number of connected computers for best performance"

That just means 5 simultaneous connections. More than 5 and you may start to experience some wait time between sending the print job and it actually printing, since it has other connections before you.  But unless you expect more than 5 print jobs at the exact same time, I'd say there's nothing to worry about, and even then, the worst that could happen is you wait a moment for the print job to complete.  

 

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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/
 

Yeah, but that really doesn't make sense.  As long as computers are not sending simultaneous jobs, why would they even bother saying that.  You could have 100 computers with that printer installed as long as they weren't trying to print at once.

In other words, you don't think it matters in a low volume environment where any given computer might print three times per day.  

Nope, I don't think it does.  In a large office with maybe dozens of computers sending jobs at the same time it may cause issues.

In a small office it should be completely irrelevant.   Of course they warn about it so you don't go suing them later because your very important multi-million dollar contract did not print, because 25 other people where printing at the same time, and your business associates left before you could sign it.  

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Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/
 

I still think they want to steer business customers (small or not) to the more expensive laserjet products AS WELL as your reasoning.

That's one of those things where if you don't read the manual (I was reading it for a completely different reason), it would never come to mind or to light.

Most IT folks or regular humans don't read manuals - DontChaKnow

Quote:

Most IT folks or regular humans don't read manuals

I usually don't, and I always get chided by my Boss for not Reading The (F) Manual...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

I realize the networking piece is built into this printer, but if it is also a USB printer, you could also try a separate print server.

This wireless one by D-Link has worked GREAT for me at home, and I've used a few different printers with it so far.  It supports up to 4 USB printers, and supports wired and wireless networking:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=i9X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=d-link+wireless+print+server&um=1&ie=UTF-8&;cid=2302101545873501429&ei=Oa0kTai2EeWMnAfl0sSDAg&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEQQ8wIwBA#

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=482

That way, the network limitations would be based on the server, not the printer... and no whole computer to install either.  It looks and works just like a router.

As for the OS support, it doesn't specify Vista or 7 on there, b/c the small auto-install file from the router does not work correctly on those.  However, you can easily manually install the networked printer on each machine... after installing the printer software and/or driver, of course.

The only issue I've had is that with my old hp Officejet 6110, the network scanning used to work fine, but doesn't show as being available for the past year or so.  I have no idea as to the whys, and I've really not bothered with sorting it out since we rarely scan anything anyway.