HOWTO: Connect to a Network Printer with the Win32 API

• Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

Using the Win32 API, it is possible to bring up a predefined Windows Dialog box for connecting to a network printer. The ConnectToPrinterDlg Win32 API works under Windows NT. However, it is not accessible by Visual Basic programs running under Windows 95 because the user interface is so different. Therefore, you must use a Command line equivalent statement to invoke the "Add Printer Wizard" under Windows 95. Below is a code sample showing how to implement both methods of displaying the Dialog.

MORE INFORMATION

1. Create a new project with Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add a CommandButton, Command1, to the form.

3. Add the following code to the General Declarations section of Form1:

   Option Explicit

   Private Type OSVERSIONINFO

        dwOSVersionInfoSize As Long
        dwMajorVersion As Long
        dwMinorVersion As Long
        dwBuildNumber As Long
        dwPlatformId As Long
        szCSDVersion As String * 128
   

   End Type

      Private Declare Function GetVersionExA Lib "kernel32" _
         (lpVersionInformation As OSVERSIONINFO) As Integer
      Private Declare Function ConnectToPrinterDlg Lib "winspool.drv" (ByVal _
         hwnd As Long, ByVal flags As Long) As Long
   
      Private Sub Form_Load()
        Command1.Caption = "Press Me"
      End Sub
   
      Private Sub Command1_Click()
        Dim osinfo As OSVERSIONINFO
        Dim iReturn As Integer
        Dim lReturn As Long
        osinfo.dwOSVersionInfoSize = 148
        osinfo.szCSDVersion = Space$(128)
        iReturn = GetVersionExA(osinfo)
        If osinfo.dwMajorVersion = 3 And osinfo.dwMinorVersion = 51 And _
          osinfo.dwBuildNumber = 1057 And osinfo.dwPlatformId = 2 Then
          lReturn = ConnectToPrinterDlg(Form1.hwnd, 0)
        ElseIf osinfo.dwMajorVersion = 4 And osinfo.dwMinorVersion = 0 And _
          osinfo.dwBuildNumber = 67109814 And osinfo.dwPlatformId = 1 Then
          Shell "rundll32.exe shell32.dll,SHHelpShortcuts_RunDLL AddPrinter"
        Else
          MsgBox "Your Operating System has not been detected successfully !"
        End If
      End Sub
   
   

4. Press the F5 key to run the project. Click the buttons to see the results. Depending on which operating system you are running, you will see that one dialog works and one doesn't:

                             NT 3.51          Win95
         ---------------------------------------------
   
         dwMajorVersion           3              4
         dwMinorVersion          51              0
         dwBuildNumber         1057       67109814
         dwPlatformId             2              1
   
   

REFERENCES

The Win32 SDK.