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UPS will tell you that their thermal printer
can't be networked but I found a workaround. Generally if you network
one of the Eltron printers it will work from Windows apps but not from
the ActiveX control from the webpage. So I went back to the old DOS days
of networking for a trick. Here's what you do...
- On the machine physically attached to the printer install the
thermal printer on a machine as per usual.
- On that same machine share the printer out, for this example let's
use a share name of "UPS"
- On the workstation without the printer attached open up a command
prompt and type
net use LPT1 \\server\UPS /persistent:yes
This redirects your physical parallel port to the network resource
and makes it appear like a local port to all programs. The persistent
switch makes it stick for following sessions.
- Download the driver from
UPS to disk
and expand.
- Manually add a printer and choose the "Have disk" option and point
it to the downloaded driver and choose LPT1 for the port.
- Go to the UPS web page and install the
ActiveX control
as usual and test your setup. There's a link on the
shipping preferences page.
- Graciously receive adulation and rewards of alcohol from your users.
Don't forget my commission of one beer out of the six-pack.
Some additional notes:
- Uninstall any previous attempt at installing the printer on the
workstation.
- Assumes your workstation doesn't require a local parallel port.
- On Windows Vista I found that
UAC
causes some additional problems. For some reason it refuses to allow
Net Use to redirect an existing physical port. The only workaround I
found on short notice was to disable UAC. If anyone knows of a
better solution please let me know.
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