Printing via Terminal Server to two different printers

I'm trying to set up a Windows 2000 terminal server, so that it will
be possible to print to two seperate Zebra printers (same model)
attached and installed locally on two different remote computers - I
would like to this by using the same printer driver on the TS. My
problem is that when installing the Zebra printer driver on the TS I
have to specify which port I would like to print to. I have chosen
TS001, but when doing that it is only the first computer to log on
that can print. When the second computer logs on it will start
printing on the Zebra printer of the first computer instead of its own
Zebra printer. My question is: how do I configure the printer port
settings on the TS, so that it both Zebra printers can be used at the
same time?

The problem is actually clearly described as an example scenario in
Microsoft article 317780 (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317780),
however the suggested resolution does (oddly enough) provide a
solution to a different problem.

Any help will be appreciated.

Glennie

jgarmoto
Tue Oct 26 09:17:57 CDT 2004

gnnh@nne-dot-dk.no-spam.invalid (Glennie) wrote in message news:<417cd673_2@news.athenanews.com>...
> I'm trying to set up a Windows 2000 terminal server, so that it will
> be possible to print to two seperate Zebra printers (same model)
> attached and installed locally on two different remote computers - I
> would like to this by using the same printer driver on the TS. My
> problem is that when installing the Zebra printer driver on the TS I
> have to specify which port I would like to print to. I have chosen
> TS001, but when doing that it is only the first computer to log on
> that can print. When the second computer logs on it will start
> printing on the Zebra printer of the first computer instead of its own
> Zebra printer. My question is: how do I configure the printer port
> settings on the TS, so that it both Zebra printers can be used at the
> same time?
>
> The problem is actually clearly described as an example scenario in
> Microsoft article 317780 (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317780),
> however the suggested resolution does (oddly enough) provide a
> solution to a different problem.
>
> Any help will be appreciated.
>
> Glennie

I don't believe it matters what port you set it up on. I would just
set it up as LPT1 on the TS. When you install the driver on the
local machines just make sure you use the exact same driver. When you
connect to the TS, it will map the driver if it finds the same driver
on the server (regardless of the port its on). When you go to print
you should see the printer mapped something like this. Computer1
would show up as PRINTERNAME/COMPUTER1/SESSIONNUMBER. Computer2 would
show up like PRINTERNAME/COMPUTER2/SESSIONNUMBER. Just look for the
computer name when you pick the printer.

gnnh
Tue Nov 02 05:32:49 CST 2004

Thank you for your reply. :) However, what I perhaps neglected to
mention is that printing is done automatically - that is, I have
written a small program that runs on the TS and handles the printing.
The program can be called from either of the two clients, but having
humans manually choosing the printer is (unfortunately) not an option.
Obviously I can't specify in the code that the printer to print to
should be PRINTERNAME/COMPUTER/SESSIONNUMBER as the session number may
change each time the computers log on, and the computer name itself
depends on which computer is using the program. I would thus like to
simply specify in the code that PRINTERNAME should be used and then
have TS map PRINTERNAME to either the printer on COMPUTER1 if the
program is called by COMPUTER1 or on COMPUTER2 if the program is
called by COMPUTER2. I'm just not sure if that can even be done,
without writing another program to handle this....

The exact same driver is installed and used on both the TS and on the
clients, so there are no mismatch between driver names.