Redirecting Local Printing

I take it these printers are shared network printers hosted on a server somewhere. you can use the "net use" command from a command prompt to redirect the LPT1 port.

eg ( all one line with the spaces) click start then run and type in the following replacing win2ksvr3 with the name of the server and hpprint with the name of your printer share.

net use lpt1: \\win2ksvr3\hpprint /persistent:yes

Do this as an administrator to test. To set this for all users you will have to put it in the all users profile startup or set it as a logon batch file or type this in for each users logon.

This will rediect the lpt1 port to the network printer share so that when your DOS application trys to print it will think it's printing to the lpt1 port when really it will print to the network printer. The persistent bit will keep this setting everytime the user you did it as logs on. One other thing If the dos app is on windows XP clients you will need to disable the lpt1 port from control panel otherwise normal users will be prompted for a password each time they want to print. to do this naviagate to control panel\system\hardware\device manager then down to ports and disable lpt1. do this as an administrator. To change it all back enable the lpt1 port and type in the following at a command prompt

net use lpt1: /del

hope this makes sense

let me know if this helps