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Conference 7.286::postscript_printing

Title:Digital PostScript printers and their associated software
Moderator:REGENT::LASKOHER
Created:Wed Jan 24 1990
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:7230
Total number of notes:31971

7185.0. "Windows NT 4.0 and PrintServer printers" by COPCLU::PETHOMSEN () Thu May 01 1997 10:03

    Hello
    
    I have a customer who has a lot of LPS17's (more than 50)
    
    He is now moving from VMS to NT and has got following problems:
    
    a)  He is printing from old DOS applications and from WINDOWS 3.11
        
    
    	He claims that when he used NT 3.51 as printserver the print queue
        could automatically detect whether it was postscript or plain text
        and everything printed correctly.
    
        After he has moved to NT 4.0 this does not work anymore.
    
        Is there a way to let the NT server autodetect whether it is
        postscript or PCL.
    
    b)  He wants the printers to boot from NT but has the problem that all
        his printerqueues is allready there and he cannot add a printer
        from the network wizard with the same name as a queue that is 
        allready there.
        He can delete his printerqueues but he really would like to avoid
        doing this if there is a way to add printers with the same name
        as existing printerqueues.
    
        He also asks whether it is possible to move the boot data from one
        NT machine to another without having to define them all again
        with ethernet addresses and all the other information that is
        required.
    
    
    Regards
    
    
    Poul Erik Thomsen
                                                                     
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7185.1Don't use the WizardTAY2P1::HOWARDWhoever it takesThu May 01 1997 16:3432
    I think the answer to a) is that it should work, although some
    applications, notably Exchange don't work properly with that.  So if
    somebody sends you an Exchange message that it s a PostScript file, you
    can't print directly from Exchange.   I think you need to specify how
    the customer is printing and where it doesn't work.  
    
    The answer to b) is that you don't need to use the Wizard to add the
    queues in order to boot them.  In fact, I recommend against it.  There
    is a limit to how many queues can be created, and then it becomes
    difficult to manage the queues even from normal menus.
    
    Just go into 
    
    Printers, Your Printer name, Properties, Ports, Configure Port,
    Options, Configure
    
    There you will see the place to add the Hardware Address, etc.  If
    Printserver 17/600 does not work, try the regular Printserver 17 driver
    and reboot the printer.  There are other notes in this conference about
    what version of firmware you need to use the 17/600 driver, but I'm not
    sure that it matters very much.
    
    Having said that, I would recommend not booting from NT.  There are
    several limitations.  You have no way to determine if the printer boots
    unless you connect to it, and you cannot do the equivalent of NCP
    TRIGGER.  If it doesn't work, you are in the dark.  You try stopping
    and restarting the spooler, and then you find a VAX and turn on
    service on the circuit to see if the MOP requests are reaching the
    computer room.  It works, but it is a lot more trouble than using VMS
    for booting.  
    
    Ben
7185.2REGENT::LASKOTim - Printing Systems BusinessThu May 01 1997 17:2919
    a) The only way that I can think of that you would get autosensing was
       if the customer was actually printing through a PATHWORKS queue to
       a OpenVMS/DCPS system that was set up for Autosensing. Windows NT
       3.51 printer queues do not autosense by themselves. Neither do
       Windows NT 4.0 printer queues.
    
    b) This request doesn't make sense. You can't create a new printer
       queue with exactly the same name as an existing printer queue. 
       If you could, how would you or the system ever reliably distinguish
       between the two? I don't think you can edit existing printer queues
       with the Wizard. 
    
       I'm not sure if the Wizard lets you set up booting for a PrintServer
       without creating a printer queue. If the purpose is to simply set up
       booting from Windows NT and keep the existing queue, I think the
       easiest way to do it is to create a dummy printer queue during the
       process, then delete the dummy and redirect the existing queue if
       necessary.