DOS printing just broke

[David Frohmader]

Printing from a DOS ap just quit working. Windows aps print fine. I tried to
copy a text file to the printer from a command prompt, i.e., "copy
textfile.txt prn" Nothing happened, nothing spooled. I had the printer
folder open to see if anything qued.

Possibly some kind of DOS printing sub-system broke? Please advise. Thanks,
David

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Have you gone through Bruce Sanderson's page
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/printfromdos.htm

Cari
www.coribright.com

 

[David F]

Yes, I checked out his site. It is a locally connected printer, via
plain old lpt1. As he says, I should have to do nothing. It should just
work (as it has for years). Nothing to pool, just one printer connected
to the computer, so can't do the second approach. Local, not networked,
so "Net use lpt1 ..." does not work--even tried it ==> goofy results.

Sooo, tried upgrading the printer driver. Did not work. Deleted printer
from Printers and Faxes folder. While trying to reinstall, Windows
"Found new hardware" and setup the driver right away. Still does not
work.

Also, I cannot print from either cmd prompt or command.com prompt by
copying to printer. I.e., "copy filename.txt prn". On another WinXP
machine this does work. So I don't think it is simply a problem with the
DOS ap. It is a problem with Windows itself.

So I'm baffled. Where to go from here?

David F.