Novell 3.12 Printer Setup

-First of all make sure the printer functions locally, has the correct driver etc.

-Using PCONSOLE you should create a printqueue for it. It's been a loooong time, so I'm not 100% sure of the menus. Select Print Queue Information, and press Insert to create a new queue. If I recall correctly, by default "everyone" can use the queue.

-Using the same PCONSOLE, in the Print Server Information option, you select your printserver, then Print Server Configuration, then Printer Configuration. In there, replace a "not Installed" printer by whatever you wish to call it (like "Joe's Laser"). The default parameters are OK, but make sure it's a "Remote Parallel" type.

-So, there is a queue and a printer. Now you link them. Still in PCONSOLE, in Print Server Information|your print server|Print Server Configuration|Queues serviced by printer|your new printer, press Insert, select your new queue.

-When everything is saved, reload your PSERVER.NLM, to read the corrected information.

-On the station, run RPRINTER. Without parameters, it's menu-driven. You'll need the printserver and the printer number. As a command line, it's "RPRINTER printserver printernumber".

-Then you have to make sure that via a login script you capture a port to that printer (CAPTURE l=2 Q=MyQueue)(and some more parameters if you need them. My favourites were NB NFF NT TI=10)

-And then install the drivers on any machine that should use it, and connect that to whatever port you used in the capture command ("l=2" means LPT2).

A word of warning though. NPRINTER is a TSR, and Windows doesn't really like those... You may need to restart it often. It may never work smoothly. Remember, this is last century's technology. A printserver, like HP's JetDirect, may be a more reliable thing to use.

Jim