Cannot connect to networked USB printer

[Anthony W]

I'm working on a 4 node peer-to peer LAN with 3 XP home workstations and
one Vista tablet PC.

I was called into resolve a printing problem from the tablet to one XP
workstation but discovered that first I had to resolve a network
security problem. With that out of the way and now all the nodes will
talk to each other and share everything but printers.

Two of the nodes have printers but I can only connect to the printers on
one. Lets call them downstairs and upstairs, the tablet can access the
files on both up and down stairs computers just fine. Downstairs has a
bubble jet connected with a parallel cable and this printer shares just
fine.

Upstairs has a Samsung ML-1740 and some Xerox color printer (that I
don't remember the model number of.) Both of these printers are
connected to USB ports. At first I was getting an out of memory error
when trying to install the driver. I found a work around on the MS site
(but had already thought of and tried it on my own) to install the
driver and then create a new port with the network name of the printer.
Now the printer shows as ready but it fails when I try to print a test
page from the driver properties.

My working theory is there is a bug in the OS and USB printers don't
share well. The downstairs node can print to the USB printer on the
upstairs node but neither my XP laptop (plugged into the LAN for
diagnostics) nor the Vista tablet PC will print to it.

What I need is either a work around for this problem or confirmation
that others are having it too. What I'd like to recommend to the client
is a dedicated print server with multiple LPT ports.

Also are there any known issues printing from Vista to NT4?

Tony

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

What exactly was the out of error message? If this was at the server layer,
you may need to increase the IRPStack (this has nothing to do with
printing).

Not enough server storage is available to process this command.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329717/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/285089/


Sharing USB connected devices is not an issue if your using inbox drivers.
The drivers are the tricky part since some of the vendor XP designed print
drivers do not work on Vista.


Version 3 drivers would need to be installed on the NT4 box since version 2
drivers are not allowed to load in Vista. The best way to print to NT4 (and
Win98, ME) is creating a local printer, which uses a Local Port (I believe
this is what you were attempting that was not working though) in the form of
\\remotemachine\printshare.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Anthony W]

The error message I got when I started was there wasn't enough memory to
install the driver. I down loaded the latest driver from Samsung for
the ML-1740 printer and installed it on the client then created a local
port with the network name of the printer. After this the printer shows
as connected, I can open and see the queue but I cannot print to it.
When I try to send a test page from properties, I get a message print
failed and nothing is sent to the queue.

The customer doesn't care about network printing to the other printer on
that workstation and I only tried to see if the problem was isolated to
the one printer. I read and printed those 2 articles but I don't think
they apply. I'll try anyway as I don't have anything to loose at this
point.

Tony

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

And the Port that you are creating is a Local Port, correct?

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Anthony W]

And the Port that you are creating is a Local Port, correct?

Correct, a local part with the network path to the printer.

Tony

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

on Local Ports with \\server\printshare, the spooler basically calls write
file to the remote location.

This is a local queue, it is not connected to the remote machine.

Since you have the driver installed, print something to file (there's a
setting in most applications), then copy that file to the same location in a
command window.

copy filename \\server\printshare

Are there any errors?
--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Anthony W]

I won't be able to test this until tomorrow but I'll try and let you know.

Tony

 

[Anthony W]

I finally was able to get some time at the customers site with the
office close (no interruptions.) It seems that I'm dealing with a
driver issue even though I downloaded the latest version of the software.

It will not print to a file. It accepts the command but the file is not
created. I tried the basic laserjet family driver tuned to the local
port connected to this printer and the printer would warm up and respond
but not print.

At this point I'm dumping the problem square on Samsung and WinVista and
I'll see where the customer wants to go from here.

Tony