Different behavior from XP SP2 clients connecting to shared printe

[Guest]

Win XP Pro SP2 clients in Win 2K Server domain (w/AD) and Win 2K Pro Print
Server in workgroup

Login script includes:
NET USE LPT1 \\PrintServerIPAddress\sharename /USER:username password

Some clients connect correctly to print server, others don't and receive
'System 5' error, access denied... I have dumped the registry off a couple of
boxes and begun looking at differences, but due to the sheer number of
entries, caused by several Adobe and MS produt installs, the task is
overwhelming.

The workstations that fail to connect to the print server seem to want to
authenticate (at the print server) with the logged on user's domain
credentials, rather than using the supplied username / password of the print
server.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Guest]

Have met this problem before wth laptops attempting to print to
domain-member printservers. Basically, domain-member computers authenticate
share-accesses through the domain-controiller, and won't accept direct
connection-attempts.

You may be able to work-around this by using a command of the form:

NET USE LPT1 \\PrintServerIPAddress\sharename /USER:domainnname\username
password

in which case the user-account has to be one existing on the domain controller

The other approach, which I favour, is to switch to Unix-style LPR printing.
This requires no authentication, and tends to work a lot more predictably
than Windows' native method. There are plenty of printserver-boxes available
which will work as an LPR client, and all you need to do on the computer is
add the LPR client (under Windows Componenents 'Other network services') and
then give an IP and portname for the printer.

You then have a printstation which will work even if only one computer is
switched-on, and which allows the user to set their own printing-preferences
without those changes having unpredictable effects for other users, as
happens with Windows shared printers.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Ian, for the quick repsonse.

Although I haven't tried, the NET USE command shouldn't work, as the
Workgroup-based Print Server knows nothing about the domain and shouldn't
accept those credentials, should it?

As for the Unix-style LPR client, I won't be able to persuade my management
of going this route, since it is only a small percentage of XP clients that
are failing to connect. (I prefer this route myself, as I am a non-Windows
Admin, hence the consternation with the registry...)