Printing to a USB printer from a MS DOS application

(A) Windows 2000 and XP -

MS DOS applications are by default designed to print to the LPT port.. To make them work with USB printers, here's what u need to do -

1. Find out if the computer connects to a network or is a stand-alone machine. If it connects to the network, find out the IP ADDRESS of the machine using the ipconfig command and move to step 2. If it is a stand-alone machine, you need to do the following -
- Go to 'Add New Hardware' wizard from the Control Panel.
- After it is done detecting any plug n play devices connected to the computer, choose the option - 'Yes, I have already connected the hardware'. Click Next.
- Choose 'Add New hardware' in the list of devices and click Next.
- Choose the option 'Install the hardware I manually select from the list'.
- Choose 'Network Adapters' in the list that comes up.
- In the next window, choose 'Microsoft' as the manufacturer AND select the 'Microsoft Loopback Adapter' from the list of adapters listed.
- The wizard will copy the requisite files and install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter. Click Finish to end the wizard.
- The IP ADDRESS for the machine would now be - 127.0.0.1

2. Assign the USB connected printer a network name. To do that -
2.1 Note down the Computer Name from System Properties > Computer Name tab
2.2 Go into the Printer Properties from the 'Printers and Faxes' folder and assign a Share Name to the printer from the Sharing tab.
2.3 The printer's network name would be - file://Computer_Name/Share_Name. You can also use file://IP_ADDRESS/Share_Name as the network name. Here, the IP ADDRESS would be the one noted down in the Step 1.
2.4 To verify that the printer's network name has been correctly assigned, open up command prompt and type the command -
C:>net view Computer Name
OR
C:>net view IP ADDRESS
If it shows the printer in the share name, proceed to step 2.

3. Map the printer network name to the LPT1 port. To do so -
3.1 Open up the command prompt and type in the command -
C:>net use lpt1 \\Computer_Name\Share_Name /persistent:YES
OR
C:>net use lpt1 \\127.0.0.1\Share_Name /persistent:YES
3.2 To verify whether the mapping has been done successfully, again use the command
C:>net view Computer_Name
OR
C:>net view IP ADDRESS
If it shows the printer mapped to the LPT1 port, proceed to Step 3.

4. Set the spool settings of the printer (from Printer Properties > Advanced tab) to "Print directly to the printer".

5. Now try to print from the MS DOS application...
Reference URLs -
http://www.decompile.com/dataflex/tips/usb_printer.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/winprint.html

NOTE: Since, the Windows drivers for the printer will be used in the background, you don't need to have any MS DOS drivers for the Printer installed on your computer.




(B) For all Operating Systems (and the only method for Windows 9x and ME systems) -

1. Download and install 'DOSprn' shareware application from the URL -
http://www.dosprn.com/

2. Restart the system AFTER you have installed the application.

3. Try to print from the MS DOS application… The default DOSprn settings are good enough.
Reference URLs -
http://www.sacpcug.org/archives/0306/prc0603.html

NOTE: This program is a shareware. You can use it to print upto 100 documents while it is unregistered. To keep using it beyond that point, you need to register it. A single user license costs $12.95. You can know more about this at -
http://www.dosprn.com/faq.htm#1

The reason, I would not prefer using DOSprn to print from NT-based systems is because we have a free workaround available in the form of the method listed above.

Manage Add-ons in IE 6 SP2

This is the official Microsoft explanation for the different options available in the BHO manager built into IE 6 SP2 -

"The Add-on Manager allows you to see a list of all the add-ons for Internet Explorer. The list is divided into two categories:

- Add-ons that have been used by Internet Explorer: a complete list of the add-ons that reside on your computer.

- Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer: the add-ons that were needed for the current Web page or a recently viewed Web page."

Ref URL - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/web/sp2_addonmanager.mspx

So, which Add-ons should you focus on???
Make the changes to the 'Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer' list. They will get reflected in the other list automatically...

Mozilla Firefox versus Internet Explorer

"What's this thing about Firefox that is attracting more and more users towards it?" a casual question by bacchi, triggered this search to find which is a better browser - Firefox or Internet Explorer? Here's what I found -

PROS of Firefox relative to IE:

- Less prone to spyware infection. That is not only because IE being the more dominantly used browser is the more preferred target, but also because Firefox is ACTUALLY more secure. Being open source also helps.
Ref URL -
http://www.ad-mkt-review.com/public_html/air/ai200501.html

- Skins \ Themes. Microsoft does not provide any skins for IE. Only 3rd party firms do.
Example of skins for IE:
http://www.davebax.com/ieskinsfantasy.html
NOTE: I was actually scared of installing any skin for IE. You can never say when you might be installing a spyware on your system. Use the skins on this site at your own discretion.

- Built in support for extensions. IE only has 3rd party plugins.

- Has a handy wizard to import IE, Netscape and Mozilla favorites, cookies, history and passwords.

- Popup blocker. Integrated into IE6 SP2 only... which is only available to people running Window XP and that too as a part of Windows XP SP2 patch and NOT as a separate download.

- No IE for Linux. The latest version of IE for Mac was IE 5. Moreover, Microsoft has stopped developing new versions of IE for Mac. And, it will only release updates to IE as a part of its service pack from now onwards.
Ref -
http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-1017126.html (Cnet link)
In contrast, Firefox is available for all platforms.

- Integrated google / Yahoo... search. You don't need to install any special toolbars.

- Won't run programs known as Active X controls. Similar to Java applets (also run in browsers), these programs have full access to your OS.
An ActiveX control is essentially a Windows program that can be distributed from a web page. These controls can do literally anything a Windows program can do. That means you could write an ActiveX control to erase a hard drive. A control containing a virus or trojan can be written, distributed, and activated from a web page, and the viewer of the control might never know. A control could even scan your drive for tax records or documents the control's author was interested in, and e-mail them off to some other person. All this can be done in a control that pretends to be something interesting, like a video game.
Ref URL -
http://www.halcyon.com/mclain/ActiveX/Exploder/FAQ.htm

- Has integrated RSS Reader in its latest version.
Ref URL - http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=12867
The integrated RSS reader (or Live Bookmarks) is not as good as a full fledged RSS reader, though. Would recommend using 'Sage' instead. It is easy to use and gives you all the functionality you usually require.

- Firefox has a beautiful Password Manager. e.g.- the moment I tried to login to www.blogger.com to blog this post, the handy firefox password manager asked me whether I wanted to save my password for logging in automatically the next time. Any saved password is VERY easy to manage from the 'Saved Passwords' option in Firefox options. IE is supposed to have a password manager. BUT, it is non-existent, to say the least.
Ref URL -
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;217148
for more information on the password manager in IE. The only problem is - it NEVER works.

- Download manager is built into the browser. You can pause and resume downloads whenever you want. Ref the interesting discussion at -
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Mozilla_Firefox_versus_Internet_Explorer-t47263.html

- The cleaner 'Options' interface. All the related options are grouped together.... Compare this to IE, which seems to hide its options in sooooooo many places.

- Is easy to uninstall if you do not like it. Compare this to IE... Microsoft seems intent on pushing it down our throats, in spite of all the litigations against it.

- Is a smaller download and uses lesser resources.

(Refer URL: http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20041230.html
for some more stuff on FF versus IE...)

CONS:

- No support for BHOs. Browser Helper Objects (BHOs), though a heavily misused feature... can prove quite handy at times to add buttons / toolbars to the browser. IE 6 SP2 works better in this regard, it provides you a handy BHO manager to control 'add-ons'.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/web/sp2_addonmanager.mspx
In the older versions of IE you could disable BHOs by unchecking '3rd party browser extensions'. Ref URL -
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;298931)

- No support for ActiveX. Yes, in spite of all the flaws, dropping support for a technology is not the solution. I say, leave the choice to the users (IE6 SP2, I almost hate to say this, does precisely that, through its 'Information bar' feature. For the older versions of IE, check out -
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;154036)

- Has problems with web sites designed specifically with IE in mind.

- No patches to fix bugs. You have to download the latest version of Firefox to fix a bug.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22634

- Have to install plugins for everything. The original download hardly comes with any plug-ins. You can download these plugins from -
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/central.html#central-plugins
This site carries links to sites of most commonly used plugins. Whenever, you open up a site that requires the use of a plug-in, you automatically get taken through a wizard to download the required plugin. IE, however, does come with some plugins - flash, for instance.
Ref URL -
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum104/43.htm
NOTE: I won't rank this as a major disadvantage with Firefox because of the ease with which even a non-techie user is taken through the plug-in download process, purely on a need-to-use basis.

- Earlier versions of Firefox took some time rendering images on web-sites. They seem to have fixed it with the latest versions though (I am using version 1.0.6).

Juicy tid-bits about both the browsers:

The browsing engine used by Firefox, Mozilla AND Netscape is known as 'Gecko'.

You can find links to other language versions of Firefox at -
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/all.html

For more info on Firefox, check out -
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Mozilla-Firefox

Deer park is eventually gonna be Firefox version 1.5. It was earlier supposed to be known as Version 1.1. The current major release is 1.0.6.
Ref URL -
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/

For more information about IE version 7 (the forthcoming release), check out the URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/default.mspx

Latest security features in IE 6 SP2:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/ieoeoverview.mspx

Will write more about these two browsers soooooooooon... In the meantime, take your pick!