Installing LPR Ports with Windows NT 4.0 Unattended Setup

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 4.0

SUMMARY

Although there is an option in the Unattended Setup to install TCP/IP printing, there is no option available to actually install the LPR port. To install the LPR port in an unattended method, the OEMPreinstall features of unattend must be used.

MORE INFORMATION

To install LPR ports on a system, the user must be a member of the administrator group. An advantage of installing LPR ports during an unattended setup is that the administrator is not required to log on to each workstation to install the port. A disadvantage of this procedure is that each different LPR port configuration required for the workstations will need a separate installation point on the network. Each installation point requires about 80 MB of disk space.

To install an LPR port (or ports), perform the following steps:

1. Install Microsoft TCP/IP Printing on a Windows NT Workstation or Server through Control Panel, Network, Services.

2. After restarting the computer, install the LPR ports with the correct IP addresses and desired names through Control Panel, Printer, File, Server Properties.

3. Open Regedit.exe (not Regedt32.exe) and go to the

         HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Print/Monitors/
         LPR Ports/Ports
   

   subkey. Under Ports, select the IP address and name of the printer you just installed. Click Registry/Export Registry File from the menu. Save it as Lpr.reg. Do this with each LPR port you have installed, making sure to give each .reg file a unique name. Close REGEDIT.

4. Go to the network installation point for Windows NT. Create a subdirectory under i386 labeled $oem$. Copy Regedit.exe and the .reg files created in step 3 to this directory.

5. Create a text file in the $oem$ directory using Edit.com called Cmdlines.txt. Add these lines, including quotation marks:

         [Command]
         ".\regedit /s .\lpr.reg"
   

   Add an additional line for each port you are installing with the appropriate .reg file name.

6. Modify the Unattend.txt file using Edit.com to do an OEMPreinstall and automatically install TCP/IP protocol and TCP/IP printing.

7. Run setup from the i386 directory with the following command line:

         winnt /b /s:<sourcefiledir> /u:<unattend file name>
   

   This procedure will install the LPR ports created in Step 2.

Additional Information

The example provides only part of the answer file needed for a complete Windows NT 4.0 unattended installation.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q155197
   TITLE     : Unattended Setup Parameters for Unattend.txt File