How to allow a visitor to print on our LAN?

[Adrian Waters]

Our office has a LAN and a Windows 2000 domain server. We must all logon to
the server to use resources such as shared drives and printers.

A visitor comes to our office whose laptop is configured for a completely
different domain, nothing to do with ours. They connect to our LAN and DHCP
gives them an IP address. Is there a way in which they can use one of our
printers?

I have tried various permutations of the NET USE command, for example

NET USE technical \\servername\technical password /USER:domainname\username

where technical is the name of the printer, username/password are a valid
login combination for our domain and domainname is the name of our domain.
But none of my permutations work. I have also tried playing with the printer
permissions on the server (though I don't think this should be necessary if
I supply an acceptable user/password).

Is what I am trying to do actually possible? If so, what are the correct
steps to accomplish it?

Many thanks in advance for any assitance.

Adrian.

 

[Paul Baker [MVP, Windows - SDK]]

If you and he are logging in to different domains, I don't see how the print
server is even recognizable to him.

Does it show up in Network Neighborhood? If you use Start/Run and
\\servername, does it successfully open an Explorer Window?

If your printer is connected to a TCP/IP port (eg. HP JetDirect), then you
don't need a print server. You just have to have him use the IP address.
Have him add a Standard TCP/IP port in the Add Printer Wizard.

Paul

 

[Bruce Sanderson]

Try this:

on the visitor's computer key the command:

net use \\servername\IPC$ password /User:username

servername is the Computer Name of the server with the printer to be used
IPC$ is exactly that character string
password is the password for the user name provided in the /User parameter
/User is the user name of an appropriate user account. If you want to use a
Domain user account, use domainname\username for username.

The visitor should then be able to connect to (and use) the printer on the
server and any folder shares to which the user name has permission.

 

[Adrian Waters]

I have just been able to test this solution and it works perfectly.

Many thanks,
Adrian.