Adding an HDA networked printer

To set up a network printer attached to the HDA from Windows, you need to perform a few simple steps. Each machine that will need access to the printer will also need the drivers installed. This will be accomplished at the time you connect them to the printer.

• Connect the printer to the HDA (parallel or USB) and ensure it is powered on. It should automatically detect the printer and set it up for you.

• Samba should be set up already for serving printers

• You can optionally create multiple queues for one printer. We recommend 4 queues, called printer (the default, set to print in black and white), color_draft, color and color_photo. Each printer queue has corresponding settings to print as desired when print jobs are sent to that queue.

• When you created it in the server, under Local Printers, it should say the name of the queue. Make sure the State (under the Settings tab) Shared is selected. This makes sure it can be accessed remotely.

• Next go to a machine on your network that you want to install the printer. For Windows, from the run option, enter \\hda followed by your user ID and password if required.

• You should see the printer now.

• Right click on the printer and select connect. Answer Yes to install when it prompts to install the printer.

• Now, it won’t find the drivers, so select OK as we will install the drivers from the printer disk.

• You should now see the add printer wizard. If your driver is in the list, select it. Otherwise, select Have Disk and point it to your drive where the printer driver disk is located.

• Once you install the driver, you can check the Printers and Faxes to see if it is installed. Although it says Access denied, unable to connect, it is working. Print a test page. If all works well, you should see it in a matter of seconds.

Optional: The printer status message problem can be corrected by adding the following line to the /etc/samba/smb.conf file under the printers section:

 [printers]
    use client driver = yes

This must be done on the server using terminal. Then, restart samba by entering /etc/init.d/smb restart and the message should now display ready on the client machine.

This worked great on my network, but may require some additional adjustments for others. For more assistance, see the FAQ (I want to add a printer to my HDA and make it a printer server, how do I do it?)

Troubleshooting on Vista or Windows 7 clients

In some windows clients, some users see this:

    "windows cannot connect to the printer.operation could not be completed (error 0x0000000d)"

We've seen this problem with a few printers now, not consistently between any particular makes or models. However, I have found a consistent fix to connect to any network printer from vista:

Run a command prompt and type the following:

      net use LPT2: \\server\printer

This sets up a behind-the-scenes connection to the printer.

Then go through the add printer wizard, choose to add a local printer, and choose port LPT2... It will probably ask for a printer driver, and you can just choose whatever XP driver you might have been using before. The printer is then installed without any errors, and works just fine.

From poking around, it seems when the error appears that the driver is actually installed, but something between it being installed and it actually being added to vista's list of printers breaks. Doing the above just works though.

This was from this Technet page