On Wed, 20 May 2020 23:10:38 +0100, Dave W wrote:

I've just looked at descriptions of print servers. Although I could
indeed drive a printer through the network, my laptop would still
demand to know that the expected printer is online, and if my printer
won't talk then surely the laptop wouldn't either?

I got a printer to work in a similar situation, through chance.

Printer on a network/LPT hub thing, visible in the network.
Windows 7 refuses to have anything to do with it, no drivers (HP Laserjet 6P!),
can't see the thing, no this will not work, ...

Dug out an old laptop which had drivers for that printer, pointed it at the
network/lpt hub, and set the printer to "shared" via the laptop.

Pointed Win7 at the shared printer on the laptop. Win7 mumbles and downloads the
previously unavailable drivers and proceeds to Just Work.

Remove laptop, point Win7 directly at the network hub, it continues to Just
Work, done.

I did not try to understand why this should work while other methods failed,
simply because printers are the work of Stan.


Thomas Prufer