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Dos Printing Over a Network

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13 replies

by eraser3498 1 view

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Recently Changed my network printers around and ran into one issue along the way. First here is the old and current configurations of the network. The network was setup with IBM eserver with Windows NT on it connected through a cisco router to 7 Workstations all running windows XP Professional. The printer server had a Dot matrix printer and a HP Laserjet 5 Printer on it. The two printers were acessible from all workstations and were workung with applications. The change I made was Swapping the Laserjet 5 out for a Lexmark T632 and I moved the HP to one of the workstations. They both seemed to work fine in thier new homes until I went to use my Dos based accounting program and it couldn't print to any printer. They work fine in windows and everywhere else accept for this program . Does anyone have any ideas on to solve this problem thanks for your help.

13 replies

by g...

Is the network present in Dos? I'd guess it's a problem like that. The Dos doesn't auto detect the printers on your net.

by p.j.hutchison

If you share the printer, then you can use NET USE to map LPT1 to the shared printer and thus DOS can print to it.
e.g.
NET USE LPT1: \\servername\printershare

by blackcurrant

Hi

We have had a similar problem with a HP 5000 Laserjet. Our accounts package would not recognise the printer even if was set as the default. We got around this by installing an older driver for a HP laserjet 3 printer. Thus, install the printer but select the LJ3 driver from the inbuilt list available when you press the 'Have Disk' button. This older driver comminucates fine with the 'newer' LJ 5. And, the accounts package printed fine too.

by kevin.square

I agree with P.J.. Odds are if you ran a net use on the workstations you'd find a remapping of an lpt port to the original shared printer. You likely broke the share and hence the mapping.

by skidoggeruk

I agree with PJ too. You could write it into the login scripts for required users, if launching from local workstations, or will need to do this at server, if using application servers/emulators. Think if were using Citrix to deliver, you could retain login scripts, as per single workstations, to capture lpt1 for this application,as Citrix will try to re-map locally.

You don't mention the application. Hopefully, once you get re-connected it will "talk" to your new printer through plain PCL or PostScript and will print OK. I wonder if you might have to jiggle about with application printer drivers to get your printing back as well.

Good Luck

by rcom

In the properties add a port select local this should be LPT2 Change the DOS based program to print to that port. Depending on the situation you may need to download LPR software for the printer.

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