Printing from DOS apps on Win2000 nework

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hank Allen
  • Start date Start date
H

Hank Allen

A local police department I do support for uses mostly DOS
applications on a Windows 2000 network for most of their work. Way too
often, I have to clear all the print jobs from the spool folder on the
server so that they can resume printing. I was wondering if anyone had any
idea how to configure the network print shares to keep this from happening
or least not as often. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hank Allen
 
[This followup was posted to comp.periphs.printers and a copy was sent to
the cited author.]

A local police department I do support for uses mostly DOS
applications on a Windows 2000 network for most of their work. Way too
often, I have to clear all the print jobs from the spool folder on the
server so that they can resume printing. I was wondering if anyone had any
idea how to configure the network print shares to keep this from happening
or least not as often. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Part of the problem is that the spooler doesn't always know when the
program has finished printing. If a program uses a DOS function call to
print, it should close the file handle when done. If it's using BIOS
calls, I don't know if there is any way for it to get the signal. I think
there is some timeout setting that the spooler uses if it receives no data
after a certain amount of time. If possible, try having them close down
programs and then restart them. That might trigger the spooler to print.
 
Andrew Rossmann said:
.........
If possible, try having them close down
programs and then restart them. That might trigger the spooler to print.
Click to expand...

Another possibility is to set the DOS apps to print to file. Have a
Windows app watching the folder where these appear and send them to
the printer.
eg Printfile, <http://www.lerup.com/printfile/>. That should integrate
better with the Windows printing system.
 
I usuall start the program from a batch file.
In the batch file i net use lptx: \\server\printer /delete /yes then net use
lptx: \\server\printer
then start the app.
Good Luck.
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