Printing to w2k printers

[HME]

Hi all,

I have about 86 Windows XP pro systems trying to print to printers defined
on a W2K print server. All printers are shared. We run in a Novell
environment, so the XP users originally log into Novell and their Novell
passwords are synchronized with an account on the XP machine. When the XP
users try to print they can't. The only way for them to be able to print is
to open the W2K share and log in to be authenticated, only then can they
print.
I tried defining all of my novell users as users on the w2k server, still
not working.
I created user accounts for the name used to log into the XP machines (not
novell) and still not working.

What is the solution here? All of my users have rights to all the printers
and i even gave them full rights to all printers and still they can't print
until they open the share first and get authenticated.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

HME


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[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

See:
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/NetPrinterAllUsers.htm

 

[Bruce Sanderson]

Unfortunately, the print (spooler) system will not prompt the user for
credentials if the "default" credentials don't work. When a user connects
to a folder share and the "default" credentials don't work, the user gets
prompted for "good" credentials.

The "default" credentials are those specified when the user actually logged
on to the local (XP) computer.

I'm not familiar with the Novell environment at all, so perhps the following
suggestions are not appropriate to your environment.

Suggestions:

1. instruct your users to connect to a folder share on the computer with the
printer before attempting to print
or
2. since your users know the credentials required to connect to folder share
and then print, define a user account on the XP computer with those
credentials and have the user logon at the XP computer with those
credentails
or
3. add a shortcut to the Startup folder in each user's profile (or, if
appropriate, the All Users profile) to do the initial authentication with
the print server at the time the user logs on. The Startup folder is
usually c:\documents and settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Statup. The
Target in the shortcut's properties to add would look like this:

net use \\PrintServerName\IPC$ password /user:username

If you prefer not to "hard code" the password, key * instead - the user will
then get prompted for the password when this command runs. If the Print
Server is actually a member of a Windows 2000 or 2003 domain (probably not
in your case), change "username" to "DomainName\username".

This command will authenticate the user on the target server
(PrintServerName) using the built-in, hidden share called IPC$. When this
command has run successfully, the user will be able to use any resource on
that computer (folder share or printer) to which "username" has appropriate
permissions.