printer problem with PowerBasic

[Don Zimmerman]

I have used PowerBasic 3.2 for DOS for several years
with excellent results. Recently I upgraded to PowerBasic 3.5
for DOS and at the same time began using a new Dell Dimension
8100 computer with Windows ME. My problem is theat the
“LPRINT” command will not work with a Hewlett-Packard
4050 LaserJet printer, although it did work before with
version 3.2 and an earlier HP printer. The “PRINT” command t
o the monitor works O.K. I have also discovered that programs
originally written in version 3.2 will print O.K. when run
in version 3.5, but new programs written in 3.5 will not
activate the printer with the “LPRINT” command. Any help
would be much appreciated. Thanks.

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Donald W. Zimmerman
Surrey, B.C.
Canada

[Lance Edmonds]

Hi Don,

I thought that we had answered this question via your email to Tech Support, but to recap, it sounds very much like you have not captured the printer port. I don't have Windows ME to test this with, but under Windows NT/2000, you have to set up a port capture before you can print from DOS applications.

This is usually done in Win9x through the particular printers' Properties dialog in Control Panel. However, in the case of NT/2000, you'll need to use the command-line utility NET.EXE, thus:

NET.EXE USE LPT1 \\pcname\printername /YES

I hope this helps!



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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Luther]

Hey ya'all!

Ding .. ding .. ding!

I have my first request to enable a system on a WIN-2000 box
for the suite written in PB 3.5 for DOS, with the hopes that
it will run in a DOS session on it!

Are you telling me, that somehow, in this case, I have to run
NET.EXE like this in the batch file to capture the printer on
this or these boxes in a WIN-2000 system before any of the
dozens of executables I use will print?

Being totally in the dark about WIN-2000 ....

Thanks!

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Mike Luther
[email protected]

[Lance Edmonds]

Yup... you got it in one. This is how you capture printer output for both _local_ and network printers.

Note that if you use the "persistent" command-line switch, you only have to run the NET.EXE command once and the capture remain active. Therefore, you really only need to worry about this step during app installation.

NET USE LPT1 \\pcname\printername /PERSISTENT:YES

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Luther]

Thanks Lance ..

Your work is now forever enshrined in my batch files, I guess..

Oh well; Tomorrow is another day!





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Mike Luther
[email protected]

[Mike Doty]

A user with Windows 2000 successfully did the
NET USE LPT1:\\ at a command prompt.
Returned to Windows and tried printing to
LPT1 using our DOS program and they get error 25.

Anyone know what device fault indicates here?
Switched them to use the driver instead
(using a shell to ddoc) and it printed immediately.
They are using an HP LaserJet 4 which should accept
the capture. If they did a typo of the server
name or share name I'd think they would have received
an error when issuing the NET USE statement. Again,
it printed immediately when using the driver. They
were not out of paper and the printer was ready.



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[Lance Edmonds]

Assuming "NET USE" shows it listed and configured correctly?

What sort of port is it configured as? SPP, EPP, ECP, etc. ? Does changing that make any difference? Don;t forget to remove the port in the Add/Remove Hardware wizard before making the change in the BIOS.

Another idea (although grasping at straws a little here) possibly the problem is the way the port is configured in Windows too? That is, parallel ports may or may not need an IRQ?



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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>