net use

[seacue]

HELP please. I know my ignorance will be obvious, but....

NET USE has partially stopped working.

I have two databases written in dBase which I never run at the same time. They are run under XP. My problem is with printing the output. Both worked as desired up to few months ago. Both the dot_matrix and laser printers are set up to be shared. Both are connected to USB ports.

One still prints labels as desired on a dot matrix printer. I have set

net use lpt1: \\local_PC_name\MatrixName /persistent:Y

The other program will still "print" them to a file using an option within the dBase program. Until a few months ago, the other program used to print Thank-You letters correctly on a laser printer using.

net use lpt3: \\local_PC_name\LaserJ /persistent:Y

Now it doesn't print and I get "Write error on D:" instead. When I Cancel that, it responds with "Write error on A:". When I cancel that, I am in the dBase command box and type exit.

To repeat, the other program which uses the matrix printer through Net Use lpt1 still works fine.

I've tried this on two different PCs (running XP) with the same result.

The net use (alone) command lists all of my failed variations of the Net Use command. Might they be confusing things? How can I get rid of them? The /Delete /Y option doesn't remove them from the list.

Gxxgle has not been my friend in solving this problem.

[mixture]

have you tried net use delete etc. ?

[seacue]

have you tried net use delete etc. ?

since your suggestion, I have tried a number of variations of DELETE.

They didn't have any effect. I still get "Write error on D:" etc.

Later: Some progress. I find that the sharing name I was using for the local machine here at home was "not quite right". When I used the correct sharing name of the local machine there was no longer the "Write error on D:" and the output got to the printer. Apparently the net use tries various disks if it doesn't understand the computer name.

The production PC is 20 miles from here and I won't be there until Thursday. I can't believe that I got the computer sharing name correct for its net use LPT1 and always incorrect for the net use LPT3.`

So I call Time Out until this coming Thursday evening. Thank you for your interest.

seacue.

[Mike-Bracknell]

net use lpt3: /d

...should work, should it not?

[Saab Dastard]

Have you looked at the "Rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry" method of printer configuration?

I use it in preference to net use for many printer tasks.

SD

[seacue]

No SD, I am unaware of that.

I have discovered that the "Write error on D:" is the result if net use cannot resolve the "target". Apparently I must have misspelt "persistent" ... once changed to /P:Y things work OK.

Isn't Windows great ... the error message for a command which cannot be understood is just quietly to do an unrelated action.

Thanks all for your suggestions.

seacue