Printing (W2K)

[gln]

I have shared the printer of one PC. I have used this
shared printer from another PC by normal process of
installing he printer driver. Initially the shared printer
worked fine for days together but of late I have to
install the driver in the another PC everyday or after
every boot of the PC. This is very cumbersome as I have
shared many a printers and people are complaining.
Any solutions??

[thCA]

Hi!

first idea is to create a logon scrip that maps the shared printer to the client computers. You can also ascertain if the driver disappear from the client computers when they restart. (start, settings, printers and choose server properties on the file menu (only on w2k)).

[jdharm]

Here is a simple solution (and what I use in the high school I work at).

Once the drivers have been installed on the computer then reinstating the printer on a remote machine is just a matter of registry entries.

So log on to one of the remote machines. Check that the current printers installed are only the ones that you want all the users to have shared at logon, or do whatever you have to do to get to this point. Set the appropriate printer to Default.

Now export the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers and all it's subkeys and values to a *.reg file.

Add to that *.reg file the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows and the string name and value for "Device" found under this key. This will set the default printer on the computer using this *.reg file.

Now put this *.reg file in a network share and call it from the log on batch file or script.

On Win2K installing these registry values will have the same effect as installing the printer, but the necessary drivers must have been installed on the computer once already.

Josh

[i]Sorry folks, I'm an idiot. Moose out front shoulda told ya. [i]