Netware and Printing

[Hurricane Andrew]

Here's the deal, at my company, we run Netware 5.1. We have an HP printer with an internal print server, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to support the IPX protocol. This isn't a problem for everyday printing, but we have some legacy apps that print via the traditional LPT port and can't be configured to print via TCP/IP.

Is there anyway to capture a TCP/IP printer to an LPT port, or any workaround in Netware to resolve this issue?

 

[Nothinman]

You should be able to setup a print queue on the NetWare server and print through that and those can be captured. But if you do that you'll probably want to convert everyone over to the NetWare queue so printing stays fair, technically you should have set it up like that in the first place so you could have proper logging, accounting, permissions, etc.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

That's the problem though, the printer doesn't seem to support Netware's IPX protocol in its internal print server. It's certainly not enabled by default, and when I try to enable it via Webjetadmin, it won't allow me to do so.

 

[Nothinman]

So? NetWare does IP just fine, I can't say I've done a whole lot with NetWare but I can't believe that you'd need IPX for anything newer than NetWare 4.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

Got it! We don't have our Netware configured for IP, but I found a workaround:

Instructions for printing through a print server from DOS based apps for Windows NT, 2000, and XP only: You must know the network name of your computer before you begin.

Note: If you do not know your computer's network name, use Start/Control Panel (or Start/Settings/Control Panel), and choose Performance and Maintenance, then System (or go directly to System), then to the Computer Name tab, and write down the "Full computer name" (not the Computer description or Workgroup or any other name). Click Cancel and close the Control Panel. For example, your computer might be named Roscoe. (If your network administrator hasn't forbidden you to change the name, you can use this dialog box to change the existing name to any name you like.)

In the example below, your computer is named Roscoe but you must of course replace this with the real name of your computer.

Use Start/Control Panel/Printers and Faxes (or Start/Settings/Printers and Faxes, or Start/Settings/Printers) and right-click on the name of the networked printer that is connected to a print server. Select Sharing from the pop-up menu. If the networked printer does not already have a sharename, give it one (with no spaces or quotation marks, and preferably only a few letters long, like dj990). Click OK and exit the Sharing tab and printer list (if it is still visible).

Use Start/Run and enter CMD, then click OK or press Enter. A DOS-like command window will open. At the prompt, enter a command that looks like this (replace Roscoe with the name of your computer and replace dj990 with the sharename of your printer):

net use lpt1 \\Roscoe\dj990 /persistent:yes

(If you already have a printer connected to your parallel port, use lpt2 or lpt3 instead of lpt1 in the command; also, if you find that this method does not work when you use lpt1 in the command, use lpt2 or lpt3 instead.) Press Enter at the end of the command, and then close the window. You may now print from DOS and the output will go to your networked printer.

Note: If you ever need to undo the assignment of lpt1 (or any other lpt-number) to your networked printer, so that you can use a printer connected by a printer cable to the parallel port on your computer, reverse the earlier net use command by entering this command (replace lpt1 with lpt2 or lpt3 if you used either of them in the original command):

net use lpt1 /delete