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Printer redirection not working

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by lmayeda

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We've been using the NET USE command to setup remote printers to redirect printing to LPT ports. It's been working for years except for occasional instances when the NET USE connection would DISCONNECT. I now have a couple of these same users print to their long standing printers, it goes through the motions of printing (hits the print queue then disappears) but no reports. They can print to the printers locally, using a separate printer definition (using IP address instead of LPTn). What could be the issue?

4 replies

by hal 9000

Any of the recently released [b]Security Patches[/b] from MS could be responsible for this. When I setup network printers I address them directly if they are directly connected to a LPT Port on a different computer. With Network Printing Devices it's a different story and when you get hit with these problems I find it easier to reinstall the printer and allow the computer to pick up its IP address so it can continue to print to these printers.

With the printing jobs disappearing from the Print Que I would say that the computers are no longer connected to the actual printers and are only going through the motions without actually delivering the print job to the Print Spooler.

Col

by lmayeda

Our local network printers have static IP addresses. In this particular case, i was able to resolve the issue by creating a new shared printer on the server using the static IP addres, then, on the local PCs, I use the NET USE command to redirect the printer to an LPT port. I suspect you're right about the MS patches since we have to keep all of our patches current. Question: if you issue a NET USE command as a PC Administrator, do you need to (can you) re-issue another NET USE command as a non-PC-Admin user? I found an existing (connected) NET USE command from the user's profile, and when I looked at the ADMINISTRATOR's profile, the NET USE Command statement was DISCONNECTED

by lmayeda

Our local network printers have static IP addresses. In this particular case, i was able to resolve the issue by creating a new shared printer on the server using the static IP addres, then, on the local PCs, I use the NET USE command to redirect the printer to an LPT port. I suspect you're right about the MS patches since we have to keep all of our patches current. Question: if you issue a NET USE command as a PC Administrator, do you need to (can you) re-issue another NET USE command as a non-PC-Admin user? I found an existing (connected) NET USE command from the user's profile, and when I looked at the ADMINISTRATOR's profile, the NET USE Command statement was DISCONNECTED

by garret`

Have you thought of using the con2prt.exe tool to setup your networked printers.

Run a logon script like:
\\server\netlogon\con2prt.exe /c \\server\printer

This might explain more: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=181663

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