Trying to unite Macintosh and Windows Printing, again...

[LC_575]

I have gone through a variety of different avenues (DAVE, LPD, Linux Server) to provide a bridge between Windows Printers and the Macintosh LW 8 system.

I am now trying another type of setup. All Macs connect to a Win 2000 Server PC (as Windows 2000 supports Appletalk and therefore may host Macintosh folders and print services). The W2000 PC keeps an Apple LW 16/600 printer driver active, which is a RedMon redirect-to-GSPrint service, which sends the converted (from PostScript) print job to the standard LaserJet 4L driver on my Win 7 machine.

Here's the problem. Win7 will accept print jobs that come in via my user name, such as any standard print job from the Win2000 PC, as the user account there has the same name and password. The problem is that the Redmon system ALWAYS prints under the .DEFAULT Win2000 account. Win7 doesn't recognize .DEFAULT, and rejects the job.

Apparently there is no way to force Redmon to run under a different account (such as mine), except in a special mode that breaks networking with the Macs. So there are two options that I think will fix this:

1. Have Win7 turn off all of it's ridiculous Networking Security features via gpedit.msc

2. Shove the Win 2000 AppleTalk drivers into Win7 (not possible as 2000 is 32 bit and Win 7 is 64 bit)

Can anyone help me out?

 

[protocol7]

You might be able to shove the AppleTalk driver from Server 2003 into 7 as it came in a 64-bit variety (you could use the files from the trial cd/download), but then there's the matter of the print server. I don't know if that would run on 7. It certainly wouldn't install. You'd have to copy all the files to the right directories and try to configure the registry entries etc manually.

 

[Gorgonops]

I have gone through a variety of different avenues (DAVE, LPD, Linux Server) to provide a bridge between Windows Printers and the Macintosh LW 8 system.

Just out of curiosity... did you have a thread talking about your Linux attempt? I don't recall it. Without knowing what roadblock you hit with that I'd say that Linux/Netatalk is your best option.

 

[LC_575]

My Linux attempt was nothing more than a few collective hours spent screwing around with NetaTalk running on Ubuntu VMWare. It's complicated to configure and when I learned about a windows alternative (pause 5 seconds for the booing and hissing), I decided that Netatalk wasn't worth my time.

As for LPD, I never had any success with it and therefore no longer see it as a viable solution.

 

[LC_575]

I FIGURED IT OUT!

Basically all I needed to do was find a way for Win 7 to receive print jobs without caring about who sent them. And what way was that?

LPD!

Tell Redmon to print to the Win 7 machine's IP, give it the share name of the Laserjet and IT WORKS!!

I will be posting a full guide soon as I basically created a AppleTalk/NetBIOS bridge with Printing.