Topic: Possible to share a printer connected to a WIN2K box?

[Mike Coan]

We have a small network of about 20 machines all running Win 2K.  We are using esmith as the email server, and it works fine.  We want to share a directory on one of the Win 2K machines, plus the printer attached to the Win @K machine.

I know I can use IBays to share a directory on the e-smith server, but I am worried about filling up the e-smith hard drive.  I could attach the printer to the parallel port on the e-smith machine, but that isn't conveniently located.

We could get a network printer and share it that way, but we are running out of ports on the switch, so I would like to share it on the Windows machine unless that is a very bad idea.

I enabled file and printer sharing on the Win 2K machine, and all the other machines can see the machine, but when they try to access it it asks for a username and password.  i don't know what username and password they are looking for.

e-smith is not configured as a DHCP server, adn the machines have static, private IP addressess.  (192.168.1.x)  Theya re all part of the e-smith workgroup.  There is no domain or domain controller.  Is this a Windows problem, or an interaction between Windows and e-smith?

If I know it is possible to share a printer connected to the parallel port of a Win 2K machine in this setup, then I will continue to try.  Just wanted to make sure that using e-smith in this situation didn't prohibit this.

Thanks.

Mike

[Charlie Brady]

Mike Coan wrote:

> Is this a Windows problem, or an
> interaction between Windows and e-smith?

It's a Windows thing. The e-smith server doesn't participate in the transaction between the workstation and the Win2K machine which has the printer connected to it.

Charlie

[Alejandro]

With Charlie's permission , I would add that in fact it is a sharing configuration or permission problem of win 2k pc.
user group "everyone" should have print access rights on this printer, or read/write permissions on that folder
Check that, cause with same settings you describe, I have no problem at all sharing a folder or printer under win 2k, through e-smith.
Even more, you could share and manage a printer from e-smith, even when it's not directly atached to the box, as a network printer.
Alejandro

[Darrell May]

Mike Coan wrote:

> I enabled file and printer sharing on the Win 2K machine, and
> all the other machines can see the machine, but when they try
> to access it it asks for a username and password.  i don't
> know what username and password they are looking for.
>

Mike, this is because the W2K default is for the built-in 'guest' account to be disabled on the workstation.  If you wish to 'freely' share a printer or directory you should enable the guest account and grant 'guest' full access to the printer and directory being shared.  Then you won't get prompted for username and password anymore.

Darrell