i setup a win 2k server, and XP Pro workstations, and 3 usb printers connected to the server mapped to LPT1, LPT2, LPT3

clients connected with 'net use' command

clients can use the printers all 3 printers in windows, and in dos, using 'print' commands and directing commands to port directly ex: "dir ] LPT1"

i am not familiar with arev, but clients using that software can not print to LPT1

LPT2, LPT3 prints fine although there is a delay or printer waits for another job

i tried connecting to LPT1 physically but results in the same senario

i tried combinations of disabling local lpt1 from bios, windows, and lpt1 from server but still results in the same problem

any suggestions would greatly be appreciated

Pat, see:

http://www.revelation.com/WEBSITE/DISCUSS.NSF/4539f515a2139aa98525652c004759c0/4455cd15030a87aa85256a30002ac57a?OpenDocument

You might do a search on "USB printer" using the search feature in this forum.

Try a FLUSH followed by a PERFORM "SUSPEND EXIT NUL.BAT" after your PRINTER OFF statement. NUL.BAT is empty and resides in your REVBOOT path. This should flush the job to the printer queue by closing the print device.

The Sprezzatura Group

[i]World Leaders in all things RevSoft

My problem isn't directly a USB problem i would think. all the printers are connected via USB. all three are mapped using "net use …" as LPT1 LPT2 LPT3. i can print to all 3 in dos and windows without any problems. Arev chokes when sending to LPT1. Plugging the USB1 to LPT1 parallel doesn't solve the problem ither. disabling the local parallel port lpt1 does nothing. for some reason arev does not see anything, it wants to send the info directly to the local lpt1 port regardless of what dos or windows does.

now i am not familiar with arev, yesterday i discovered the F5 Tcl/Tk prompt…but i am unfamiliar with any commands. setprinter 1 shows lpt1 lpt2 lpt3 but the name is an hp deskjet on all 3 and the physical printers are all okidata ml series. i am convinced that arev looks only for a local lpt1, disabled or not.

how do i change this?

i looked at a earlier post to where pdisk sends to a local drive and a utility sends it to the printer…i believe this will be an alternative solution if need be. but am i over looking something in arev that i am un aware of?

and as for programming in the code u provided, how and where do i insert it?

thanx

You can try the following:

F5 - TCL

PDISK LPT1:

or

PDISK LPT2:

or

PDISK LPT3:

Run your report

then

PDISK PRN (S) .. this will close the print job

which returns it to what it thinks is the "normal printer"

AREV essentially uses the DOS assigned device to PRN, which defaults to LPT1: under DOS

Note that PrintScreens may or may not work with PDISK. Also, note that PDISK uses a file handle AND it sometimes doesn't get released properly so that multiple PDISK commands can cause the Windows DOS box to run out of handles.

Don Miller

C3 Inc.

i tried pdisk lpt1: in the tcl prompt and it says "the pathname for the output file is invalid. the printer has not been redirected.

pdisk lpt1 without the ":"

is accepted but when printing with shift F9 results in Write fualt error writing to device LPT1

Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?

then sends me to Line 256 'PRINT.PS1' broke becuase a runtime error was encountered.

with a "!" prompt

i have to restart the program

pdisk prn says printer output has been redirected to the output file "lpt1 ".

printing with this says "Printer not connected or out of paper. Quit or Retry"

there are no jobs in the queue on the server so its not sending it useing dos or windows

how do i code that in.

right now my client uses shift F9 to print to a default printer and shift F8 to print to a special printer

for instance for for orders they use LPT1 (which doesn't work)

and for invoices they use LPT3 (which does work)

and shift F8 on any of the screens goes to LPT2 for a special labels printer (which does work)

however there is a delay on prints until another queue is sent or u exit the program.

and in dos or windows there is no delay to any printer

I don't think the printer mapping you setup on the workstation carried over to MS-DOS. May be OK in Windows but doesn't seem to be there in the DOS box you're trying to use. It may be necessary to start AREV from a .BAT file which does the necessary NET USE commands.

You can probably test this assumption by going to a plain MS-DOS command prompt, changing to the server drive where AREV resides and then:

NET USE .. LPT1

NET USE .. LPT2

NET USE .. LPT3

then

DIR *.EXE ] LPT1 .. make sure lpt1 prints

DIR *.EXE ] LPT2 .. ditto

DIR *.EXE ] LPT3 .. ditto

if the printers work don't work then the USB port mapping is FUBAR and you'll have to use a 3'rd party tool to accomplish this otherwise,

AREV /M4096X

then

from AREV, print someething simple:

LIST 10 VOC (P)

.. this should come out on lpt1

PDISK LPT2

LIST 10 VOC (P)

PDISK PRN

PDISK LPT3

LIST 10 VOC (P)

PDISK PRN

.. if the printer capture is correct, the output should come out on each printer.

If this works, then your .BAT file should do the same thing

Otherwise, I can't figure anything easy. You can always direct the print to a print file using pdisk and then use Windows Explorer to print and then delete the file after printing.

Don Miller

C3 Inc.

I use a Printer Select popup on a Softkey to do this. If a particular form needs to go to a particular printer, then I hard code it in the program itself with an appropriate MSG box .. the output must go to ..some printer .. Make sure that Form xb57d is loaded, press the key to continue. Press the to abort printing.

or somesuch..

Don Miller

C3 Inc.

it does work from dos and windows all 3 ports.

in arev it doesn't send to lpt1

but after checking the event logs when sending a single print request it creates 4 print system log entries…

"Document xxx, Remote Downloevel Document owned by B was printed on LPT3 via port USB006. Size in bytes: 0 bytes; 0 pages printed."

the next 2 says the same with different document number

and the first entry has an actual size in bytes

however the odd part is that the print request did not come from B it came from J (another compter on the network)…

so i moved to workstation B, and it does print to all 3 printers from B and only B

from J and the others it only prints to LPT2 and LPT3

the only thing i can think of is all the computers were norton ghosted from B

and the ghosted ones are renamed and given a different ip on the network, all are individual and recognized by the server the way it is supposed to. print jobs sent to server from windows are reconized individually.

any ideas as to how to corrent this on the other nodes?

so a new question might be why

i fixed the problem of all originating from B. i changed how each node logs on to the server so each are individual, and each sends a print job to the respected port.

however it still does not print to lpt1 from arev

on lpt2 and lpt3 there is a delay which we can deal with

but lpt1 does not print at all in arev

it prints in dos and windows without delay

what can be the problem?

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