Questions and Answers About Printing

• When is the Windows NT printer driver significant?

  There are four cases in which the Windows NT printer driver affects a client's print job:

  • When you are printing from a Windows-based application, which is running on the Windows NT-based computer in question
  • When you're printing from a remote Windows NT client computer that used Connect To to establish a connection to your shared printer (and therefore may have received your printer driver)
  • When you are printing from a remote Macintosh client, and the target printer is not a PostScript device
  • When a print job arrives marked RAW, and the default data type for the printer is TEXT

In any other case, the Windows NT driver does not get involved.

• When will a Windows NT print server alter an incoming job?

  There are two cases in which Windows NT alters a print job, in addition to the situations listed in the previous question:

  • When a UNIX client uses LPR to send a print job using the "f" control command;
  • When a print job with the RAW data type arrives at a printer that you've configured to use the RAW [FF Auto] or RAW [FF Appended] or TEXT data type by default.

In any other case Windows NT does not alter the job.

• What problems might cause incorrect output?

  Incorrect output is often a symptom of a misconfigured printer driver, a printer driver that does not perfectly match your print device, or a misconfigured default data type. Other possibilities include corrupted documents, corrupted graphics or fonts embedded within a document, or bugs in the application that is generating the print job.

• What problems might prevent output entirely?

  Complete lack of output is often a symptom of problems with a print monitor. Try using a port controlled by another print monitor (FILE: is a good test). If the problem goes away when you access the print device through another port or print monitor, then the port or print monitor may be misconfigured. If the problem does not go away when you test with another port or print monitor, check the print device, and consider printing to another, similar device as a test.

• How can I obtain updated printer drivers?

  Microsoft places all new or updated printer drivers onto its electronic services for public download. These services are listed at the end of your Hardware Compatibility List.

• How do I turn off network popups that occur when print jobs succeed, and how do I keep the print server from beeping when a job arrives that the monitor cannot transmit (for instance, because the target print server is not responding)?

  Use the Registry Editor to find the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers and add a value "NetPopup" with type REG_DWORD and value of zero.