Windows, std OS in Hell - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

9 Nov 2001

---- On Fri, 09 Nov 2001, Geoff Reed (geoffr(a)zipcon.net) wrote:

...
  At 01:20 AM 11/9/01 -0800, you wrote:
 > >What confused me for a long time, and is currently scheduled for
...
  again this
 > >evening, is that Apple printers in many cases are NOT TCP/IP, but
...
  ethertalk
 > >(same physical layer, different protocol). Some of the bridges and
...
  routers
 > >pass TCP/IP or EtherTalk, but not both, then add to that the native
...
  network
 > >blind character of a Wintel box and I am walking in a foggy forest.
...
  > >
 > >Tonights fun, Apple Laserwriter 16/600 vs W98se, film at 11.
...
  >
 >I've been digging at this problem for a few weeks, and I almost don't
...
  >believe the answer. Windows machines apparently
won't print directly
...
  to
 >network printers. (obviously NT will, ditto maybe w2k, but not 95 or
...
  98).
 >The story I hear is that Microsoft wanted to sell more NT servers, so
...
  they
 >pulled the support for standard protocols like LPR (something like
...
  that)
 >forcing users to print from a workstation to a NT server, which
...
  contains
 >the protocols to talk to the network printers directly. Why did
...
  windows
 >users allow MicroSoft to get away with crap like that?
 >
 >BTW the sane alternative appears to be SAMBA, but it still is really
...
  wrong.
 >HP has wizard software that gets around this somehow, but Apple can't
...
  even
 remember it was in the printer business 4 years
ago.  
 Nope, WFW3.11, Win95 and Win98 were designed as "small office / home 
...
  operating systems" and were never given support
for LPR protocol as you
...

 weren't expected to see that in a SOHO / Workgroup or Home setting.  
...
  (In 
 yet another previous incarnation I was a support tech for POS at
...
  Microsoft 
 [Personal Operating Systems] )

There are lpr drivers available as shareware or commercial
products for Win3.x, Win95 and higher.

Most of the third party add on printer servers come with an lpr
capability for Win9x and there's a shareware one on Simtel for 
Windows 3.x with a winsock.

Lan Workplace also had one from Novell.

Bill
--
Bill Pechter
Systems Administrator
uReach Technologies
732-335-5432 (Work)
877-661-2126 (Fax)