remote desktop never recognize my local printer?

[cfman]

HI all,

I installed a Brother printer in office(hereafter I call PC O), and now I am
remotely connecting back to my home(hereafter I call it PC H).

On PC O, the printer was installed in a local LAN peer-to-peer printing
mode, using LPR protocol.

The remote desktop does not recognize this printer at all - on the PC H,
when I want to print, actually I want it to print to this Brother printer on
PC O. But it never had this option in the scroll-down list of the printer
list.

Is there a way I can let the remote PC H know that it should print via PC O
to the Brother printer in my office?

What's wrong with remote desktop?

Do I need to install a virtual network printer on PC H, in order to use it
to print to Brother printer in office? Since it was installed as
peer-to-peer printing using LPR protocol, I am not sure how to install a
printer driver on PC H for this Brother printer in my office...

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot

 

[GTS]

Printing to an LPR printer from a Remote desktop guest is a little tricky.

Firstly, install the printer driver as a non-plug and play local printer on
the host (PC H).

On the guest (PC O) this is what you need to do (I'm assuming the printer
driver is already installed on this guest PC) :
- In printer properties on the guest Share the printer and assign a share
name. (This seems counter intuitive but is required to set up printer
pooling.)
- Run ipconfig and note the guest PC's IP address.
NOTE - You should NOT be connected to RD at this point. Also, it
would be best to assign this PC a static address instead and use that.
- In a command prompt run >net use lpt3 \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\printer-sharename
/persistent:yes
(This could have been lpt 1 or 2 alternatively.)
- Check printer pooling and select lpt3 as well as the TCP/IP port (which I
assume is presently selected) for the ports.

 

[cfman]

Printing to an LPR printer from a Remote desktop guest is a little tricky.

Firstly, install the printer driver as a non-plug and play local printer
on the host (PC H).

On the guest (PC O) this is what you need to do (I'm assuming the printer
driver is already installed on this guest PC) :
- In printer properties on the guest Share the printer and assign a share
name. (This seems counter intuitive but is required to set up printer
pooling.)
- Run ipconfig and note the guest PC's IP address.
NOTE - You should NOT be connected to RD at this point. Also, it
would be best to assign this PC a static address instead and use that.
- In a command prompt run >net use lpt3
\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\printer-sharename /persistent:yes
(This could have been lpt 1 or 2 alternatively.)
- Check printer pooling and select lpt3 as well as the TCP/IP port (which
I assume is presently selected) for the ports.

Wow, finally some expert in both Remote Desktop and Printer Setup areas
replied me with detailed instruction.

Thank you so much GTS.

But I am a little bit horrified at these steps and they look hard.

Before I try these steps, may I ask will it be easier if I install the
printer driver PC O (the PC in my office, the one I am using most of time,
and the client for using RDP client to connect to the server at PC H (my
home PC)) to be network shared printer?

In fact, here is the situation at my office:

I have a LAN connection, and I've put up a wireless wouter(linksys), so now
there is a room-socket with incoming LAN connection, and I connect that
socket with the linksys wireless router, and now I have the wireless
capability and 4 Ethernet connections from that wireless router.

I normally use one laptop in my office and I typically use Wireless. There
are other PCs but they are slow and noisy and power-consuming so they are no
longer used here.

I've connected the printer to the wireless router using 1 of its 4 Ethernet
connections.

My laplop is communicating with the wireless router wirelessly.

When I installed the Brother's printer HL5250DN, it had several options:

1. Brother Peer-to-peer Network printing(printing directly to the printer
over the network)

2. Network shared printer(all jobs are sent to the queue on a central
server)

When I installed the driver on the PC O laptop, I have no idea about what's
the difference between the above two options, so I choose the first one:
peer-to-peer printing,

Then it has two options: LPR(recommended, set by node) and Netbios.

Again I have no idea so I choose the first one.

That's why it is LPR now. And it worked. I can successfully print from my PC
O locally to that printer.

------------------------

Now my question is: if I choose NetBios, or Network Shared printer, will
they make my life easier for making the RDP work with the printer?

Thanks a lot!

 

[cfman]

Printing to an LPR printer from a Remote desktop guest is a little tricky.

Firstly, install the printer driver as a non-plug and play local printer
on the host (PC H).

On the guest (PC O) this is what you need to do (I'm assuming the printer
driver is already installed on this guest PC) :
- In printer properties on the guest Share the printer and assign a share
name. (This seems counter intuitive but is required to set up printer
pooling.)
- Run ipconfig and note the guest PC's IP address.
NOTE - You should NOT be connected to RD at this point. Also, it
would be best to assign this PC a static address instead and use that.

Hi GTS,

I have also a question regarding this step.

I have only one incoming LAN connection in my office so I use a wireless
router(linksys).

The printer is connected to the wireless router's local Ethernet socket; the
PC O is connecting with the router wirelessly; the incoming LAN connection
is connected to the wireless router through the Internet socket.

Thus we use the router's DHCP capacity.

There is no static IP address for the laptop PC O;

What can I do then?

Thanks a lot

 

[GTS]

The fact that you set the office printer up as peer-to-peer LPR is fine.
The instructions I gave address exactly that configuration.

If I understand you correctly, the laptop is the only workstation connecting
you your router at the office. If that's the case and you find it too
confusing, forget about assigning it a static address for now. It's DHCP
assigned address isn't likely to change which was the concern.

- To install the Brother printer driver at home bring the printer CD home or
download the driver from Brother. (If the CD runs a setup program rather
than allowing just pointing to the driver, you may be better off to download
it.) In Printers and Faxes run Add Printer. Specify local printer
attached to this computer and uncheck Automatically detect and Install
....... Choose LPT1 as the port, ...Have disk ... point to the driver
location... In other words, you install it as if it were physically
connected to that computer except that you prevent plug and play detection.
- At the office follow the steps in my initial post - Share the printer on
the laptop, determine the laptops IP address with ipconfig, and run the net
use command as specified.

Maybe this will be clearer with a little explanation. If the office printer
were connected directly to the office PC (instead of connecting by Ethernet
to your router) Remote Desktop printing would work solely by virtue of
having a matching driver on both computers. It would send the print stream
to the local LPT or USB port. Since the printer is connected to your office
network instead, what we are doing is using your office PC to intercept the
print traffic and reroute it through your network. This is done by the
Printer Pooling facility in Windows XP whereby, in this case, the print data
stream is captured to the LPT port and forwarded to the printer through your
network.

I hope that helps.
--

 

[cfman]

Hi GTS,

On the guest (PC O) this is what you need to do (I'm assuming the printer
driver is already installed on this guest PC) :
- In printer properties on the guest Share the printer and assign a share
name. (This seems counter intuitive but is required to set up printer
pooling.)
- Run ipconfig and note the guest PC's IP address.
NOTE - You should NOT be connected to RD at this point. Also, it
would be best to assign this PC a static address instead and use that.
- In a command prompt run >net use lpt3
\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\printer-sharename /persistent:yes
(This could have been lpt 1 or 2 alternatively.)

In your later message, you've used lpt3, should these be the same?

Also, are you running this command on PC H, or PC O? If you run this on PC
O, then the PC O is already connected to the printer through the wireless
router, I am not sure why do you need to do this on PC O; if it is on PC H,
then the IP address of the PC H (after using the wireless router) is a DHCP
one assigned by the wirelss router, which is 192.168.1.107, which is not
accessible by the PC H at all, since it is inside the office wireless
router...

- Check printer pooling and select lpt3 as well as the TCP/IP port (which
I assume is presently selected) for the ports.

Either on PC H or PC O, there is no way to select "lpt3 and TCP/IP port"
together, whenever I select lpt3, the TCP/IP port will be unchecked...

The PC H still prints to its physical local printer, which is actually
non-existent, so it still could not print at all...

 

[GTS]

You're asking me to repeat things I already explained, you're mixing up
answers I gave to 2 different questions, and you're not following the
instructions (e.g. enabling printer pooling so you can select multiple
ports). All the information you need is in my two prior posts.
I mean no disrespect, but I think maybe you need to bring in some qualified
local assistance to set this up for you.
--

 

[TP]

You need to do two things to make this work, assuming that your
Brother printer driver software is TS-compatible:

1.) Use Remote Desktop Client version 5.2.3790.0 or later on
your office PC.

- Version 5.2.3790.x can be found on a 2003 server in the
following folder:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\clients\tsclient\win32\

- You can download version 6.0.6000.16386 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=26f11f0c-0d18-4306-abcf-d4f18c8f5df9

2.) Install the Brother printer driver software on your home PC.
You can do this by "pretending" that the Brother is attached to the
computer and running through the Add Printer wizard, making sure
to uncheck "Automatically detect and install my Plug and Play Printer".
Do *not* print a test page, this is unnecessary and will not work.
Also, the local port you select is irrelevent, so simply choose the
default LPT1.

After you have successfully completed the wizard, delete the
Brother printer you just installed--the necessary driver software
will remain.

Next time you connect to your home PC from your Office PC, your
Brother printer will automatically show up as an option. It will be
named something similar to "Brother HL-2040 (from COMPUTER)".

The technique GTS describes (sharing, pooling, etc.) was a
workaround for an older version of the client, but has not been
necessary for years.

-TP

 

[GTS]

You're information is incorrect. What you describe is how RD printing works
if the printer is attached to the PC. cfm has a printer connected as an
Ethernet node. There is no need for the newer client, and the printer
pooling method is required to route the print traffic through the local
network.
--

 

[TP]

What I said is correct, and will achieve the desired result. The
newer client version is not *required*, however. I recommended
it because using the newer version will be less brittle than making
the required registry change. This is because the registry change
is per user, so when another user logs on they will also need to
make the same change.

Your method suffers from the same problem (brittle) as the registry
change--each unique user will have to perform the net use lptx
in order to make printing work. In addition, you are unnecessarily
requiring that the printer be shared. Printer sharing is there so
that someone else on the network can print to the printer, not as
a method to facilitate printer auto creation on the remote PC.

What happens when there are several ip printers? Would you
have them continue to use net use until they run out of LPT ports?

Years ago, the technique you describe was created to work
around a specific limitation of the Terminal Services Client. That
is, the client did not support redirection of network printers.
Note, I am referring to network printers here, not printers that
are installed locally with an IP port, like in the poster's
situation. This workaround was rendered unnecessary when
the 5.1.x.x version of the client shipped (w/XP).

Windows 2000 Terminal Services does not redirect network printers

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/264039

Now, many TS techs knew of the above workaround, and applied
it to solve the issue the original poster has: by default, versions
5.0.x.x and 5.1.x.x of the client only attempt to redirect local
printers attached to ports that begin with LPT, COM, or USB.
This behavior can be changed by adding a registry value, but at
the time *most* were unaware of this. Then this article helped:

Printers That Use Ports That Do Not Begin With COM, LPT,
or USB Are Not Redirected in a Remote Desktop or Terminal
Services Session

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302361

Newer client versions 5.2.x.x/6.0.x.x default to the ANY local
port name behavior, but can be changed to the old behavior by
registry setting. This change in default is why I recommend them
to solve this particular issue.

-TP

 

[cfman]

You need to do two things to make this work, assuming that your Brother
printer driver software is TS-compatible:

1.) Use Remote Desktop Client version 5.2.3790.0 or later on your office
PC.

- Version 5.2.3790.x can be found on a 2003 server in the following
folder:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\clients\tsclient\win32\

- You can download version 6.0.6000.16386 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=26f11f0c-0d18-4306-abcf-d4f18c8f5df9

2.) Install the Brother printer driver software on your home PC. You can
do this by "pretending" that the Brother is attached to the computer and
running through the Add Printer wizard, making sure to uncheck
"Automatically detect and install my Plug and Play Printer".
Do *not* print a test page, this is unnecessary and will not work.
Also, the local port you select is irrelevent, so simply choose the
default LPT1.
After you have successfully completed the wizard, delete the Brother
printer you just installed--the necessary driver software will remain.

Next time you connect to your home PC from your Office PC, your Brother
printer will automatically show up as an option. It will be named
something similar to "Brother HL-2040 (from COMPUTER)".

The technique GTS describes (sharing, pooling, etc.) was a workaround for
an older version of the client, but has not been necessary for years.

-TP

It worked! Thank you so much TP.

As a greenhand in these stuffs, I chose the easiest way, so I downloaded the
new client. I didn't know there was one. I saw the release date was
11/28/2006, just a few days ago.

The new client worked. Learning from TP and GTS' discussion, I learned that
it was the default behavior of the new client to redirect all local printers
that helped. Yes, I noticed that the initial connection to the PC H was
actually slower than the old client -- the reason is that it is redirecting
a lot of printers connections, etc. I can sense that out, for the initial 30
seconds, there are a lot of chaos going on; but after 30 seconds, all my
printer can now be accessed from PC H.

One thing to note is that if I just install the driver from the CD on PC H,
it did not work;

But if I use the Setup Wizard to install everything from the CD on PC H, and
then delete the installed printer, then it worked;

So indeed the Setup Wizard has done a lot hidden things, in addition to
install the driver itself.

I am sure with this trick of using Setup Wizard then delete, GTS's method
will also work.

Thank you both for your expertise and excellent suggestions. This solves my
headache which lasted for one year.

I appreciate your great help!

MIke