Printing to USB Printers from FoxPro 2.6

There are several solutions, depending on your configuration.

1. If you are using a shared printer on another computer, you shouldn't have a problem. Share it from the other computer, and point to it from the FoxPro 2.6 computer.

2. To print to a USB printer on the FoxPro 2.6 computer. On Windows XP and 2000, you can share the printer, then use a NET USE command to redirect LPT1 to the shared printer. This is like the Novell capture sequences.

• Install the printer and share it. You may need to set permissions to allow Authenticated Users to use the printer.
• Add NET USE LPT1: \\CRAIG\USBPRINTER to the logon script for the user's profile.
• For help on logon scripts, look up "To assign a logon script to a profile" in XP Help.

3. To print to a USB printer on the FoxPro 2.6 computer. On Windows XP, you can use printer pooling.

• Install the USB printer on the computer.
• Install a local printer on LPT1 (works best, or LPT2). Don't have XP search, but pick the printer by brand. Let it be similar or common printer you recognize.
• Now select printer properties for the new LPT1 (virtual) printer. On the ports tab, put checks for the LPT1 (for the virtual printer) and the USB for the real printer. Now choose Enable printer pooling. The DOS drivers will print to LPT1. Since XP pools the ports, the output will then be directed to the USB printer.

4. Or try the DOS2USB program available at:

http://www.dos2usb.com/order.htm

I've had one report that this works great, but I haven't tried it myself. As always, test thoroughly in a non-production environment.

Good luck!

If this was helpful, send me ( craigr@computer-u.com ) an email.

Joost Dekker of the Netherlands says "It works."