Tech Tip Daily

I can’t recall how many times I’ve been on a customer site and needed to print something, only to find that the printer was some obscure model that used a driver only obtainable from some password protected website in China, that just so happened to be down.  After talking with a coworker, he brought me in on a little secret – the HP LaserJet 4 driver will almost always work (and it’s included by default in all recent versions of Windows)!

Reluctantly, I tried it.  To my surprise, it really did work.  While using this “universal print driver” doesn’t always yield the best and most correct formatting options, it almost always prints a readable page and can be very useful in a pinch.

To select the HP LaserJet 4

• When given the option to select a model for your printer, choose ‘HP’ in the manufacturer window and then select ‘HP LaserJet 4′ in the printers window.

In my experience, the HP printers tend to do a better job with this trick (obviously) but I’ve had success with Konica Minolta, Canon, Dell, and a host of other brands.  I wouldn’t recommend doing this for anything too important, because as mentioned, formatting and margins can sometimes become an issue.  But for that quick print of a reference document, it sure comes in handy.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

So after taking a few days for a break, I’m finally back (hey, it’s hard work running this site by myself).  I’ve talked in quite a few posts about my experiences with Vista.  Overall, it’s been fairly pleasant, especially after reformatting.  I’ve had few compatibility issues.  One that’s really bugged me though is the inability to easily print to a Netgear PS121 print server from Vista.  With the many machines I’ve got in my house, I’ve always preferred direct network printers instead of sharing them from a single machine.  Besides, my Vista desktop is doing enough as it is, the last thing it needs is to share a printer.

The software included with the print server includes an installation package for Windows XP.  This sets up a network printer connection to print to the server.  Unfortunately, the install file is incompatible with Vista.  In addition, adding the printer like most network printers doesn’t work…exactly.  While this is how you begin the process to install the printer, there are a few additional tweaks required to get it to work.  I’ll start from the beginning. Before you begin, ensure that the print server is powered on and connected to both the printer and the network.  You may wish to do some preliminary configuration on the print server, such as setting an IP address and name for the device.  The default IP address is obtained from DHCP, most likely from a router if this is installed at home.  Check the documentation that came with your router or modem for instructions on checking the DCHP allocation.  Alternatively, you can download Angry IP Scanner and do a port scan on your local subnet for all machines with port 80 (http) open (essentially, this checks for all devices on your network that have a web page – the PS121 does).  Despite all of this information, you will need the ip address for your print server to set up printing.

To print to a PS121 print server with Vista:

1. Go to Start->Control Panel
2. Open “printers”
3. Right click and choose “Add printer…”
4. Select “Add a local printer”
5. Select the bubble next to “Create a new port:” and then choose “Standard TCP/IP Port” from the dropdown.  Click Next
6. On the next page, enter the ip address of your printer (e.g. – 192.168.1.20) in the “Hostname or IP address” field.  The port name will be automatically generated (you’ll need to remember this for step 14).  Choose “Autodetect” for the device type.  Click Next
7. Windows will now attempt to find the device.  In all likelihood, it won’t find anything and you’ll have to wait a minute or two while it searches.  This might be avoided by selecting something different instead of “Autodetect” in the previous page, but I haven’t tested this.  When it finishes searching, ensure that the bubble next to “Standard” is selected and “Generic Network Card” is displayed in the drop down.  Depending on the make and model of your machine, this might display something different.  It’s probably a safe bet just to click Next at this point
8. On the next page, select the manufacturer of your printer, then choose the printer model from the box on the right.  There are a wide variety of different models available in Vista.  If yours isn’t listed, choose “Have Disk” and browse to the location of your print drivers.  These can be obtianed from the manufacturer’s website.  Once selected, choose next
9. If it asks which version of the driver to use, select “Use the driver that is currently installed (recommended)”.  Click Next
10. Type a name for your printer (you can probably leave it as the default).  Also, check the box if you would like it to be set as the default printer.  Click Next
11. Select whether you would like to share the printer on your network
12. Click Finish (don’t print a test page just yet, we’re not done)
13. In the printers window (which should still be open), right click on your newly installed printer and select properties
14. In the window that appears, click the “Ports” tab and select the port with the name consisting of the IP address of the PS121 (or whatever you named the port to in step 6).  Click “Configure Port”
15. In the “Protocol” box, select “LPR”
16. In the “LPR Settings” box, enter a queue name of “P1″ and check the box next to “LPR Byte Counting Enabled”.  Click OK

And you’re set.  With as lengthy of a process as this is, I would recommend printing a test page to check your settings.  To do this, go back to the printer properties (step 13) but instead of going to the ports tab, click “Print a test page”.  I’ve not had a problem getting this to work.  If you have any issues, leave a comment, and I or someone else will try to help you out.  Alternatively, you can try searching around on the internet, although I’ve found very little coverage on this little topic.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!