Assessing Print Job Failures

Assessing Print Job Failures

One of the benefits of Windows printing is that the operating system handles all print job output in a standardized manner, regardless of the application from which you are printing. Windows NT, being a network operating system, enables you to define network printers that are available as shared resources for other Windows NT Workstations to print to. Any client or server on a network can serve as the print server to a network printer. Additionally, you can have local printers that are not shared resources to other network computers, but that need to be managed and troubleshooted by their owner.

The centralization of printing services is a beautiful thing; you must admit. A single standardized print model under Windows replaces the individual print models of applications under MS-DOS, something more easily understood. The down side is that when problems do arise they affect your entire application suite and maybe an entire workgroup.

Keep in mind that Windows still retains the older model for printing for MS-DOS application that run in Windows NT Workstation from the command prompt. These applications require their own printer drivers to print anything other than ASCII output. If you are using WordPerfect 5.1, for example, you require that both a WordPerfect and printer driver be installed. Some MS-DOS applications may require that you turn on the printer port by using a command such as:

NET USE LPT1: \\servername\printername

prior to printing.

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