ATTENTION IT's: WIN2K NETWORK PRINTING

[Xcalibur]

Ok this is an odd one. In the office we had just upgraded all the boxes to win2k, and now we have a really odd problem. The printer we are using is a cutting plotter. For some odd reason, whenever anyone tries to print from their pc to that printer they have to be logged on to their pc and they also have to go to the plotter's pc and log on there with the same username and password. We have the access set up so that everyone can print and manage documents. We have the printer shared to everyone. Ive ran through the configuration on the printer's pc about 5 times and its flawless. I am new to win2k and maybe some of you other Techs can help me out.

 

[spidey07]

how are your running windows 2000? Do you have a domain? Did you setup active directory? Do you have a server?

My guess is you did not setup a domain, you did not setup active diretory and you do not have a server.

Enable the guest account on the PC that is sharing the printer.

and quit shouting at me.

 

[Xcalibur]

Were running a central server for the entire network, but then have a server for every printer.

 

[spidey07]

When you say a server for every printer, what kind of server? Is it a PC or a dedicated printer server like the HP jetdirect?

Also, how do users log in? Is there a domain or Active directory or are you running peer-to-peer workgroup scenerio?

 

[pissedoffwookie]

well if the printer is shared and can be browsed to then sometimes its just not worth fighting the network so try bypassing the problem route altogether:

first lets create a virtual port and make it permanent

-open a command prompt by typing cmd in a run box and clicking OK

-now type the following: "net use lpt3 \\prntsrvrname\printername persistent:yes" without the quotes and where "prntsrvrname" and "printername" are the net names of the printer and the computer its attached to.

-now intstall the latest Win2k drivers for your plotter on the machine that needs to print as a local printer and configure to print locally to lpt3

this just fools the applications into thinking the printer is attached directly to the machine and the computer redirects any calls to the localport lpt3 to the network location we provided in the previous step

hope this helps