Question : Access denied, unable to connect - NT4 and XP Pro

Hi all

Today's problem is...

An NT4 server prints to a shared printer on a Windows 98SE machine perfectly.  Swap the 98 machine for XP Pro and the same thing fails after one job with the error in the printers list on the NT box.
The printer is connected via parallel port LPT1.

When I first swapped in the XP Pro box, I shared the printer, went to the NT machine, printers, add network printer - didn't show up in the list so I just put the UNC path in, it installed OK.  Prints one job easy - then stops and in the printers window it shows the error .  I discovered that resolution of the host machine name was taking ages with Start, Run, \\hostname although it did work eventually, so I added it to the hosts file (IP is fixed) in case it was timing out somewhere.  No change.

So I re-installed the printer via the IP address - \\90.0.0.91\printername - with exactly the same results.

I can get to the shared directories on the host OK so it's not *really* authentication is it?  I did enter the server username and password in the XP Pro machine user management just in case, and also vice versa.  No change.

During the process I tried re-installing the share with a different name but then reverted to the original one - and now sometimes when viewing the host from the NT4 box, the share name is the OLD one, as if it's been cached.

I now have the printer installed twice - once to the IP address and once to the hostname, both printer names are correct and the same as the share but if I try and delete one, I get the error "Printer connection cannot be removed.  The printer name is invalid"

Something somewhere is very confused.

I confess to using the wrong drivers - it's a Brother 1270N using 1260 drivers on both machines - but it prints fine when it DOES work and it was using the wrong drivers on 98 too.  I did try and use the correct drivers but as I now can't REMOVE the printers I'm kind of stuck.


Simon

Answer : Access denied, unable to connect - NT4 and XP Pro

On XP Box: Go to START->Settings->CTRL Panel->Printers, right-click on the shared printer, Properties, Security and Give the right permisions for the users. You can even try to enable Guest and give it the right to Print, but this can be a serios security hole !