Network Printing

Printing from Other Microsoft Print Clients

The Windows 3.x, MS-DOS, and OS/2 operating systems use their own printer drivers. Clients with these systems can get a list of all available printers in a domain but cannot use Active Directory. These clients can print to a Windows 2000 print server by installing a local printer and redirecting the local port to the network printer share on the Windows 2000-based server. For example, if a printer is installed on LPT1 and you type the following on the command line:

net use lpt1: \\Servername\Sharename

The output to the LPT1 port is redirected by the client network redirector.

Required Redirectors

Network redirectors are required because 16-bit clients print to ports rather than printers and are unaware of the printers in the Printers folder. This limits most 16-bit applications to local ports.

To use remote printers, install Microsoft® LAN Manager Client Version 2.2c (for OS/2) or Microsoft Network Client version 3.0 for MS-DOS (for MS-DOS or Windows 3.x). Redirectors are not needed for Microsoft® Windows® for Workgroups (Windows 3.11), which has a built-in redirector.

Note

Some 16-bit applications do not print to addresses that are longer than 31 characters; some do not print to any printer if the default printer has a long address. Also some 16-bit applications do not support spaces in addresses.

Output Destination Rules

The rules for directing output differ between 16-bit applications and Windows-based 32-bit applications. Windows 2000 accommodates 16-bit applications in the following ways:

If the redirector controls the port (as when a net use command redirects output to a shared resource), the redirector determines where the document goes.
If the port is not controlled by a redirector but has a printer assigned to it, the document goes to that printer. That printer's spooling options take effect.
If the port is not controlled by a redirector and no printer is assigned, the document is sent directly to the port device driver and prints unaltered.

For example, print server \\Server1 has two shared printers defined in its Printers folder. Printer HPV prints to an LPT2 port supplied by a separate I/O card, and printer HPIIISi prints to the FILE port. LPT1 and LPT2 each have one print device attached. Type the net use command:

net use lpt3 \\server1\hpiiisi

Copy a file to the parallel ports. In the following results, /b is the switch for a binary transfer:

copy test.txt lpt1:/b

The client checks the redirector and finds that it does not manage LPT1. It checks the spooler and finds that neither printer prints to LPT1. The document is sent to the parallel port device driver. To do this, type:

copy test.txt lpt2:/b

The client finds that the redirector does not manage LPT2. It finds that printer HPV prints to LPT2. The job goes to HPV, whose spooling options take effect as the document prints on LPT2. Type:

copy test.txt lpt3:/b

The client finds that the redirector is managing LPT3, so the redirector takes control. The net use command has redirected LPT3 output to the print share \\Server1\HPIIISi, where the spooling options of HPIIISi take effect.

Note

Although net use is typically used to assign a local port to a remote shared resource, it can also assign a local port to a local shared resource. This is useful in testing and troubleshooting.