Cannot Add/Delete/Configure Printer ports

[Bill Clark]

When I go into the Printers and Faxes panel, no matter what printer I
select, under the Ports tab I cannot add/delete/configure any ports that the
selected printer should use. All the buttons are greyed out and I cannot
select/deselect any ports. All the printers print fine except for a newly
added networked plotter that gives the following error when I try to do a
test print: "Test Page Failed to print. Unable to create print job." I've
tried a dozen different drivers and nothing works, I always get that same
error. On previously setup XP machines, that networked plotter works just
fine. I am logged in as administrator to XP and have full administrative
rights to everything on the network. Desperately need some help here on
both issues.

Bill

[Bruce Sanderson]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are saying, but I'll try and
help.

1. What you can do with a "printer" depends to some extent on whether the
printer is "local" or "network" on the computer you are working from and the
OS of the Print Server computer. For example, if you look at the Properties
of a "Network Printer", you are actually looking at the properties of the
printer as known on the Print Server computer. If the Print Server computer
is a Windows NT 4 computer, then, no matter what rights and permissions you
have on that Print Server computer, you can do very little remotely with
Ports (e.g. the Add, Delete and Configure ports buttons will be greyed out
on the Ports tab). You need to logon locally at the Print Server computer
to make add, delete or configure ports. However, you should be able change
which of the already existing Ports a particular "printer" is to set print
output to.

2. as to the "plotter", it will probably be useful to know what make and
model of "plotter" (wide format printer?) this is. Printer drivers are very
idiosyncratic, so prescriptions for one often don't apply to another. Make
sure you have a Windows XP compliant printer driver installed on the Print
Server (possibly as an Additional Driver - see
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/AddDrivertoOldOS.htm). Many "Windows 2000"
printer drivers will install on Windows XP, but don't work very well. You
will need a "Version 3" driver ("for Windows 2000 and XP").

--
Bruce Sanderson MVP

It's perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.


"Bill Clark" > wrote in message
...
> When I go into the Printers and Faxes panel, no matter what printer I
> select, under the Ports tab I cannot add/delete/configure any ports that
the
> selected printer should use. All the buttons are greyed out and I cannot
> select/deselect any ports. All the printers print fine except for a newly
> added networked plotter that gives the following error when I try to do a
> test print: "Test Page Failed to print. Unable to create print job."
I've
> tried a dozen different drivers and nothing works, I always get that same
> error. On previously setup XP machines, that networked plotter works just
> fine. I am logged in as administrator to XP and have full administrative
> rights to everything on the network. Desperately need some help here on
> both issues.
>
> Bill
>
>