Avoiding Win2K Pro Printer Server Login

[TheTooleMan]

I have several computers running Win2k Pro on a network. I also have an
HP 3500n color laserjet printer connected to the router.

One of my computers is to be used as a print server, and it shares the
HP 3500n.

Another computer (call it "Client 1") is used for composing large Word
documents. Since its spooler eats up its resources, I want all of
Client 1's printing to be handled by the server.

Here's the hitch: when trying to use the print server the first time
after a restart, Client 1 has to log in. The attempt to connect to the
printer does not bring up a login dialog. To get the dialog, the user
must manually attempt to connect to the printer or one of its shared
folders via "My Network Places" or another manual method.

I want Client 1 to be able to access the printer on the server without
requiring a "login." Is this possible? How can I accomplish this?

Many thanks for your advice in advance!

Shaun Toole

 

[Guest]

First, I'm making the assumption that you are not on a domain and that
these "clients" and "servers" are a peer network? It sounds like the user
account that is being used on Client1 is not set up on the server.

For example, if you log on to a computer with the account "bob" and
password "bobspassword" then Windows will automatically try this user account
and password when connecting to another computer or shared network resource.
This works great if the other computer has a user with the same name and the
same password, but will fail if not.

For each user account on your client workstations, you will need to create
a corresponding account on the server with the same password and give account
access to the shared resource.

Otherwise, I suppose you could create a batch file that ran at startup
that connected to the resource. This is if you only want one user account
that all the client workstations use to access the server regardless of their
actual login account, but I would recommend against it. For example,

net use \\servername /user:theusername thepassword

 

[TheTooleMan]

Thanks for the reply! Your assumption is correct - these are peers, and
there is no domain.

I will set up an ID and password on the server that corresponds with
each of the clients, and post back if it doesn't work. Otherwise,
assume you solved my problem!