🚀 go-pugleaf

Richard,

First of all, congratulations on being able to keep an eleven year old printer running.

The Windows 2000/XP PostScript driver does still support PostScript Level 1. There is indeed an option for setting this, but if you are using the proper PPD for the printer with the driver, this is unchangeable and set at PostScript language level �1.�

You mention that you get �errors� printing the �test page.� Could you be more explicit as to what those �errors� are? Are you getting a PostScript error handler message printed out or displayed on your Mac? If so, what is the contents of that message? If not, enable the error handler in the driver. Unless we know more about what the �errors� are, there is not much we can suggest that would be helpful.

- Dov

Hi Dov,
Thanks for your rapid reply.
I ran 2 test cases. here are the steps, symptoms and error messages:

1. Test Case 1: Attempted to print Windows test page:
1.1. Connected Windows XP Pro system to network printer successfully (NEC Silentwriter2 90 v52.2); verified status = Ready.
1.2. Opened printer properties window and clicked "Print Test Page" button.
1.3. Button stayed down and cursor displayed hourglass; task waited for 2 - 3 minutes then displayed "(Not Responding)on title bar
1.4. Closed printer properties window and got error message window "explorer.exe not responding - end or wait".
1.5. Selected "end"; Explorer (and desktop) stopped and restarted)
1.6. Printers and Faxes window displayed printer status: "Printer not found on server, unable to connect"
1.7. Results at printer: 2 pages were printed: p1 was the top 2 lines of the test page Windows Xp logo and text: "Windows XP Printer Test Page".
p2 PostScript Error Message text:
"ERROR: syntaxerror
OFFENDING COMMAND: --nostringval--
STACK:
/AddT3Char"
1.8. Printer panel status displayed "ready"; Error message on Mac "document ... could not be printed on printer because of a postscript error
1.9. The document was still in the Mac's print queue. I selected try again and got the same 2 pages and same error message; then I deleted the document.
1.10. On Windows XP system I refreshed the Printers and Faxes window and the printer status reset to ready.

2. Test case 2: Attempted to print a 1 page Word document.
2.1. Verified Printer status ready.
2.2. Opened document and selected print with page range 1-1.
2.3. Word displayed "preparing to background print" for 2 minutes then displayed icon showng print progress for 2 more minutes; then completed without crashing.
2.4. Results at printer: 2 pages were printed: p1 was the header and footer and only the top 3-1/2 lines of text.
p2 PostScript Error Message text:
"ERROR: undefined
OFFENDING COMMAND: MLRC
STACK:
7
1689"
2.5. Printer panel status displayed "ready"; Error message on Mac "document ... could not be printed on printer because of a postscript error
2.6. The document was still in the Mac's print queue. I selected try again and got the same 2 pages and same error; then I deleted the document.
2.7. On Windows XP system I refreshed the Printers and Faxes window and the printer status reset to ready.

P.S. Above 2 cases work normally from my Windows 98 PC and from my Windows Me system before I upgraded it to XP.
P.P.S. The Windows XP System is a Dell Dimension 4100 w/ P3 867MHz CPU, 256MB RAM and 40GB Hard Drive. The Windows XP partition has plenty of free space.

Thanks for your help

- Rick

Rick,

The problem seems as if it really has something to do more with the network transport mechanism rather than the PostScript generated by the driver.

One piece of housekeeping first ... By any chance, did you �upgrade� your Windows Me system as opposed to performing a �clean install� of the Windows XP operating system to a newly-formatted disk partition? If so, it would explain problems with system software. In conjunction with that question, is there any part of "Dave" that is installed as a client under Windows or is it entirely Macintosh-based? Anyway, if your system was an �upgrade� I would strongly recommend doing a clean install to get rid of any �doggy droppings� of Windows Me that were not cleaned up by the Windows XP �updater,� a notoriously incomplete piece of software.

If in fact, you are running from a clean install, I would look at how the communications protocols are setup for talking to the Dave client on the Mac from Windows. Also, I would ascertain that the driver is set for ASCII communication as opposed to Binary or BCP.

- Dov

Hi Dov,

The Windows XP was a clean install to a newly-formatted partition. I was warned about possible �doggy droppings� of updating.
DAVE is entirely Mac-based, but I don't have the most recent version. I will look at the protocolls and check their support; also, this is the first time I've used a Win NT based system on my network.
The driver is set for ASCII.
Thanks again for your reply.

Problem was resolved by upgrading to latest release of DAVE from Thursby Software (see DAVE 4.0 at thursby.com).
Thanks again for your help.