When Vista doesn't print

I installed Vista RTM immediately as it was available on the MSDN.

That was quite a surprise for me as I thought that many months would pass before my first Vista installation. But alas, I had to write an article on Vista for Slovenian leading computing magazine Monitor and I just got completely new Vista-ready laptop which I could use for playground. (It got Windows XP Home preinstalled - yuck!)

Anyway, I installed Vista (or, to be more precise, Windows Vista Ultimate) on that laptop. Everything worked fine (even though I had to scrap together few drivers from all over the internet). Everything except that I couldn't print. I have this nice colour laser printer (Samsung CLP-510, really smooth) in the office, and it is connected to the Windows 2003 Server. All other computers (running XP everyone of them) could use this shared printer but not the Vista, nooo sir.

It was quite an interesting malfunction, too - when I tried to connect to my shared printer, Vista started copying drivers (XP drivers, of course), and then reported that driver installation 'ran out of memory'. OK, I only have measly 2 gigs installed, but still...

I tried a different trick - installed printer driver locally (no problem here) and only after that tried to connect to the shared printer (in hope that currently installed driver will be used). But nooo, Vista reported same error again.

I gave up then saying: "Oh, well, it's only about two months until Vista is available for general public. Surely Samsung will have Vista drivers ready by then." But the problem was still nagging me and I spilled out my soul to my friends on Slovenian Delphi forum. Somebody has an interesting idea - why don't I connect to the Samsung as if it were a TCP/IP printer and then spool EMF content to the server. Still, he had no idea how to make this work in practice.

I searched for the solution occasionally but found out that Microsoft documentation on that topic is really hard to find if you don't know what you're searching for. I did'nt spend much time on that, though, as I could always use the printer from my main computer.

Solution, at last!

Today I returned to the problem and somehow managed to find the answer in Microsoft's documentation. It really is simple - when you already know how to do it :( .

For anybody trying to solve a similar problem - and for all of you that just want to learn more - here is the solution.

First, install Print Services for Unix on the Windows 2003 Server (Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components, Other Network File and Print Services, Details). Make sure that the TCP/IP Print Server service is running.

Next, install LPR Port Monitor feature on the Windows Vista (Control Panel, Programs and Features, Turn Windows features on or off, Print Services).

Create new port on the Windows Vista computer. Run Printers and clik Add Printer. Choose Add a local printer. Select Create a new port setting and set Type of port to LPR Port.

Click Next and enter address of the server providing Unix printing services and name of the printer.

Click OK and proceed as usual - select printer manufacturer etc.

All work to no avail?

Using this procedure I managed to get my Samsung working from the Vista.

I learned a lot and maybe I will be able to use this knowledge in the future.

Maybe it will help somebody out there with a similar (or completely different) problem.

It didn’t help me at all :(

You see, it is February already and Samsung published updated printer drivers two days ago.

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