Totally baffled by printer

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I administer a small network consisting of:

Windows SBS 2003 Server
5 workstations running XP Pro
5 lasers printers (2xHP; 1xCanon; 1xBrother; 1xEpson). All printers have network built in and there are NO print servers.
The printers are are loaded on the server and all workstations can access all printers, with one exception.

One workstation can access all of the printers via the network ping, etc and ‘printers and faxes’ says the printer is there and I can print a test sheet from ‘properties’. It just won’t print from ANY program (tried Word, Excel, IE, Acrobat and others). The workstation reports that the document has gone and nothing happens. It prints to the remaining 4 printers with no problem whatsoever.

I got round the problem by loading the printer on the relevant workstation and it works fine, but itv rather defeats the object of having a file and print server.

Anyone got any bright ideas?

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Do the workstations all have the printer drivers installed locally, or do some or all use the driver on the server via a share. If it’s the former, I would try reinstalling the driver for that particular printer, and double (triple if you have already double) check the IP settings for that printer on that workstation. If it’s the latter, the only thing I can think of might be some firewall setting on your SBS server.

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When you say all printers are loaded on the server I assume you are using the SBS server as the print server. This means you connect to the printers via the server, not by loading drivers on each PC (actually you do load drivers on each PC, but it’s done automatically when you connect to the print server).
I always test this by opening Windows Explorer and typing in the address bar – \servername
After the 3rd slash, Explorer will list all share on the server, including the printers, and you select the one you require from the list.

cheers, Paul

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