Windows XP Network Printing Problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom Young
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Tom Young

Hi:

Printing from my new Dell Windows XP machine to the networked printer
is incredibly slow, from all programs. Printing from Notepad is
pretty much impossible.

I have a simple peer-to-peer network: Windows ME machine, Windows XP
(Home) machine, Microsoft Router, FastPort Model 3420X print server,
Epson Stylus Photo 890 printer. The print server uses NetBEUI which
may ,or may not be, part of the problem. The Windows XP machine
couldn't "see" the print server until I found and installed NetBEUI on
the XP machine.

The "Windows XP" machine replaced a different Windows 98SE machine
about a week ago. When the Widows 98SE machine was in place
everything worked just fine, so my problems seem to have something to
do with Windows XP.

I've checked to see that there's nothing wrong with the setup of the
printer, i.e., not printing text as graphics, quality not "high", and
so forth. I'm using the latest and greatest print driver for XP
provided by Epson. I've uninstalled and re-installed the printer.

If I connect the printer directly to the XP machine everything is
fine; I'm guessing the issue is more a "network" problem than anything
else.

In casting around for the solution to the problem the only thing that
seems relevant is the suggestion to *not* have mulitiple protocols
bound to the file and print sharing. I haven't made that "fix" yet as
I'm through for the day as far as this problem goes and I have a
niggling feeling that's not the problem: the same setup (all protocols
bound to file and print sharing) worked just fine when the Win98
machine was there in place of the XP one.

Any other things folks can suggest to me?

TIA.

Tom Young
 
Hi:

Printing from my new Dell Windows XP machine to the networked printer
is incredibly slow, from all programs. Printing from Notepad is
pretty much impossible.

I have a simple peer-to-peer network: Windows ME machine, Windows XP
(Home) machine, Microsoft Router, FastPort Model 3420X print server,
Epson Stylus Photo 890 printer. The print server uses NetBEUI which
may ,or may not be, part of the problem. The Windows XP machine
couldn't "see" the print server until I found and installed NetBEUI on
the XP machine.

The "Windows XP" machine replaced a different Windows 98SE machine
about a week ago. When the Widows 98SE machine was in place
everything worked just fine, so my problems seem to have something to
do with Windows XP.

I've checked to see that there's nothing wrong with the setup of the
printer, i.e., not printing text as graphics, quality not "high", and
so forth. I'm using the latest and greatest print driver for XP
provided by Epson. I've uninstalled and re-installed the printer.

If I connect the printer directly to the XP machine everything is
fine; I'm guessing the issue is more a "network" problem than anything
else.

In casting around for the solution to the problem the only thing that
seems relevant is the suggestion to *not* have mulitiple protocols
bound to the file and print sharing. I haven't made that "fix" yet as
I'm through for the day as far as this problem goes and I have a
niggling feeling that's not the problem: the same setup (all protocols
bound to file and print sharing) worked just fine when the Win98
machine was there in place of the XP one.
Click to expand...

Hi,
since Win2000 and also in WinXP, when windows networking is bound to
TCPIP, the system tries a network connection to remote IP port 445, and
only if this fails, uses ports 137 to 139. As Win98 and WinME don't have
a port 445 open (and would not know how to handle those incoming network
packets to port 445), WinXP keeps trying for some time or number of
attempts. (I'd like to know where this is defined, because after update
with SP2, this takes forever.)
During these attempts, the printing process seems to be frozen.

So your problem may very well go away if you unbind file and printer
sharing from TCPIP on the WinXP machine. I would like to know whether
this helps.

I can't do this because NETBEUI is not supported on our LAN, but
astonishingly the freezing of the printing process also goes away if I
deny outgoing connections to remote port 445 in the firewall.
Now that's a dirty fix, because the system SHOULD use 445 when
connecting to other Win2K or WinXP machines, and I will allow 445
connections as soon as all other machines are upgraded to Win2K or
WinXP, but until then ... if only someone could tell me where to set the
connection timeout so that the freezing stops after that time
(it's NOT affected by the setting of
HKLM\SYSTEN\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanworkstation\parameters
SessTimeout=dword)


--
email me: change "nospam" to "w.hennings"
Wilfried Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum (Research Center) Juelich GmbH, MUT
<http://www.fz-juelich.de/mut/index.php?index=3>
All opinions mentioned are strictly my own, not my employer's.
 
I have six Dell XP Home boxes and a switch on a Netbuei LAN. The
printer is attached to one box and works just fine.

No tricks were required to make it work.
 
Wilfried-

Thank you for your post! You have given some direction to a wild goose chase
on our part. We have the same problem. I actually have it on multiple
networks I support. The problem is 98 / ME print servers. I have been
playing around with your concept. I will continue if I do not hear from you.
I am stuck on how to "deny outgoing connections to remote port 445". I don't
imagine you do this in the GUI. I messed around with it in the netsh
firewall command line format. No luck so far. Could you offer any advice /
steps?

Thank you!

Bret
 
Bret said:
Wilfried-

Thank you for your post! You have given some direction to a wild goose chase
on our part. We have the same problem. I actually have it on multiple
networks I support. The problem is 98 / ME print servers. I have been
playing around with your concept. I will continue if I do not hear from you.
I am stuck on how to "deny outgoing connections to remote port 445". I don't
imagine you do this in the GUI. I messed around with it in the netsh
firewall command line format. No luck so far. Could you offer any advice /
steps?
Click to expand...

Hello and thanks for your reply.

The best what I've found meanwhile about setting up the XP SP2 firewall
is the article "Deploying Windows Firewall Settings for Microsoft
Windows XP with Service Pack 2", available on Microsoft Technet at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...E1-61FA-447A-BDCD-499F73A637D1&displaylang=en
As far as I understand one can allow or deny a specific port, but it's
not clear to me whether this means the local port, the remote port, or
both. I guess they mean the local port which does not help in our case,
as WinXP opens a lot of different local ports for these connections
which are all directed to remote port 445.

I don't use the XP SP2 firewall but I use another Tiny Personal Firewall
v.2 which is quite old but still good. This allows blocking of outgoing
connections to remote port 445.
TPF2 is no longer available from www.tinysoftware.com (they are now at
v.6 which includes not only a firewall but also a file access guard, a
registry guard, intrusion detection, and more, which I don't want), but
I think this or any other personal firewall (e.g.ZoneAlarm or Kerio)
would be able to selectively block outgoing connections to remote port
445.


--
email me: change "nospam" to "w.hennings"
Wilfried Hennings c./o.
Forschungszentrum (Research Center) Juelich GmbH, MUT
<http://www.fz-juelich.de/mut/index.php?index=3>
All opinions mentioned are strictly my own, not my employer's.
 
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