Net Use LTP1: issue

This occurs mostly on clients, but on 2000, 2003, and XP boxes.

We have an old DOS program that is hard coded to print some reports to LPT1.
Most of our computers do not have printer ports any longer, just USB
printers. I also have network printers that print directly over TCP/IP. In
order to print to these printers from DOS programs that are hard coded to
LPT 1 and others that allow printing to LPT2 and 3 I did the following:

1. Setup the Printers:
a. USB Laserjets on USB
b. Color central copiers at TCP RAW printers
2. Shared the TCP printers on the local machines
a. HP LaserJet 5 shared as HPLaserjet
b. Konica Color Copier shared as Konica
3. Set the following in my logon scripts:

Net Use LPT1: \\127.0.0.1\HPLaserJet
Net Use LPT2: \\127.0.0.1\Konica.

What happens is the LPT ports get redirected to the computers own shared out
USB printer or remote TCP printer by using the looopback IP 127.0.0.1. This
works fine almost all the time, but occasionally when I try to print to LPT1
after printing most of the day, the print jobs do not print and if I try to
Net Use LPT1 /delete and remap I get "Error 5: Access Denied" even when it
is with a domain admin or local admin account.

I cannot seem to figure out what is causing the local share to stop working.

Did you try mapping the USB printers to a network print server, then
printing to that IP address? Put this in your startup.bat script for the
relevant machines:

net use LPT1: /delete
net use LPT2: /delete
net use LPT3: /delete

net use LPT1: \\192.168.0.25
net use LPT2: \\192.168.0.26
net use LPT3: \\192.168.0.27

I have a habit of clearing existing drive mappings in the login scripts,
to keep user error from creeping in. <grin>

Make sure your HOSTS file and DHCP zone file have the right entries for
these three printers. (I also RO the HOSTS file on Windows machines.)

JN wrote:
> This occurs mostly on clients, but on 2000, 2003, and XP boxes.
>
> We have an old DOS program that is hard coded to print some reports to LPT1.
> Most of our computers do not have printer ports any longer, just USB
> printers. I also have network printers that print directly over TCP/IP. In
> order to print to these printers from DOS programs that are hard coded to
> LPT 1 and others that allow printing to LPT2 and 3 I did the following:
>
> 1. Setup the Printers:
> a. USB Laserjets on USB
> b. Color central copiers at TCP RAW printers
> 2. Shared the TCP printers on the local machines
> a. HP LaserJet 5 shared as HPLaserjet
> b. Konica Color Copier shared as Konica
> 3. Set the following in my logon scripts:
>
> Net Use LPT1: \\127.0.0.1\HPLaserJet
> Net Use LPT2: \\127.0.0.1\Konica.
>
> What happens is the LPT ports get redirected to the computers own shared out
> USB printer or remote TCP printer by using the looopback IP 127.0.0.1. This
> works fine almost all the time, but occasionally when I try to print to LPT1
> after printing most of the day, the print jobs do not print and if I try to
> Net Use LPT1 /delete and remap I get "Error 5: Access Denied" even when it
> is with a domain admin or local admin account.
>
> I cannot seem to figure out what is causing the local share to stop working.
>
>
>
>