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Can anyone think of a way of Re-Sharing a Shared Printer? When I connect the shared printers to Server 2008 R2, it comes up as a network printer, and settings take affect on the host (not the server) so I can't Re-Share it.

The reason I need this is I have a number of workstations that run software in which I have to hardcode the printer name. In an emergency I have to use USB printers shared from a workstation, which also needs to print. So on the workstation the printer name is "Printer" where as on the other computers it's "Printer on Workstation", so I can't hardcode the printer names.

If I can ReShare it from the server it will be "Printer on Server" for everyone. (It'll also mean I don't need to change the hardcoding when the replacement networked printers arrive).

TIA

Dom
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  • Go live time is in 30 minutes, and I can't see an easy way, so I'm going to duplicate the software and hardcode the printers twice - all good. Thanks for everyone's help. – Dom Aug 06 '12 at 02:59

3 Answers3

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A printer is a logical construct that "maps" to a physical device. There's nothing stopping you from creating a second printer, with a Share name of whatever you require, that "maps" to the same physical device.

joeqwerty
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Why bother sharing it twice? Just install the drivers and create a TCP/IP port and map the second computer directly to the printer, or are you traversing networks here that is limiting direct TCP/IP connectivity from the second computer to the printer?

EDIT: Hrmm... are you really dealing with only USB printers here? (scratches head).

SpacemanSpiff
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  • The printer is a USB printer used in an emergency. There are no Ethernet Printers available to replace it just yet. – Dom Aug 06 '12 at 01:44
  • Wow... that's one pain in the ass piece of software you're dealing with... I've had to deal with similar situations, but I've always had the flexibility of forcing users to use a print server and centralized printing. A printer on each desk makes this hard. Maybe a script of sorts that toggles the mapping from local to remote? – SpacemanSpiff Aug 06 '12 at 01:49
  • I wonder if some fun kind of USB over IP device could be used here as a clever workaround? – SpacemanSpiff Aug 06 '12 at 01:55
  • It will be converted to Ethernet ASAP, but there's no stock, I'm hoping for a clean fix now, otherwise I'll have to duplicate the software and hardcode the printers twice, once for the host Workstation and once for the other workstations. I'm aware that the printer / software combo is horrible, but they're specialist courier stuff that we have to use. – Dom Aug 06 '12 at 01:58
  • I'm going to run this by some buddies for you. I'm thinking maybe print services for Unix could be used to send a job via LPR from one workstation to another, but you still have the problem of being unable to share a job. Is this for constant printing/ticket printing or the one-off? maybe its easier to have a spare printer on hand – SpacemanSpiff Aug 06 '12 at 02:05
  • It's single page barcode printing. Over and Over. Don't go to too much trouble because I don't want to set up something that's really complex, making 2 copies of the software is not difficult it's just not elegant and will need to be reversed when the new equipment arrives. – Dom Aug 06 '12 at 02:13
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Instead of connecting to the printer on the server, go through the Add New Printer wizard on the PC and create a new Local Port, and use: \servername\printershare as the local port name. Then select your driver, and the printer will be usable as whatever you name it.

KJ-SRS
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  • Good idea, might work. Ran out of time so made two copies of the program. – Dom Aug 06 '12 at 12:39
  • This worked for me at first. But if the remote printer requires usernames and passwords, then there are problems. I created a reshare without any password, and other users of the computer could send print jobs to it, but they had to enter credentials again. I had been hoping to create an entirely-password free reshare – Aaron McDaid Sep 01 '14 at 12:56