OS/2 Warp Server e-Business printer sharing notes

These are notes I made when attempting to configure WSeB to be the print server for a Lexmark Optra S1620 (with a 'MarkNet S' internal printer server card).  Screenshots to follow someday.

Problem: Clients use a "Network Printer" object in Connections->Printers folder to create a local link to the network printer, but:

• The clients' printer drivers do not update automatically from the print server, and can't be updated manually.
• The clients' printer's Job Properties do not stay in sync with the Job Properties set on the server's object,

6.0 ENABLING OS/2 PRINTER DRIVER DOWNLOAD FOR OS/2 CLIENTS
----------------------------------------------------------

The LAN administrator can set up a shared print queue to allow OS/2
clients running Warp Server to automatically download required printer
drivers from a common place.  This is useful when the print server is
using a printer driver that is not yet installed on the client.  When
the client creates a network printer object referencing the print
servers shared print queue, the printer object will first check to see
if the required printer driver has already been installed on the client.
If the driver is not installed on the client, the printer object will
look in the following places for a path to the printer driver:

1.   The spooler looks in the OS/2 system INI file for application
     name PM_SPOOLER_DRVSHARE.  The keynames for this application name
     are print server names; the keyvalue is the path to the
     printer drivers that can be downloaded to clients.

     If the application name is found, the spooler uses the
     keyvalue for the print server requested or the first keyvalue if
     the print server requested is not a keyname.

     The following is an example entry for print server PRINTSRV on a
     LanServer Domain.  This assumes all clients have a "net use" in
     place for a drive that contains the printer drivers.

      App Name                  Key Name                Key Value
      ---------                 ---------               ---------
      PM_SPOOLER_DRVSHARE       LS:\\PRINTSRV           X:\DRVS

2.   If no PM_SPOOLER_DRVSHARE entry exists, the print server is
     checked for a directory share named PRINTDRV.

3.   If neither of the above finds a path to the printer drivers, the
     user's logon domain "LS:\\*ALIAS" is checked for the alias name
     PRINTDRV.

The path returned by one of the above methods is used by the OS/2
printer object as follows:

1.   Search the root of the path for packed files (*.DR_).
2.   Search the root of the path for unpacked files (*.DRV).
3.   Search the subdirectory OS2DRV of the path for packed or unpacked
     files.
4.   Search the subdirectory PMDD_n of the path, where n is the OS/2
     printer driver diskette number and the subdirectory contains the
     OS/2 printer driver diskette contents

For example, to share all OS/2 printer drivers, the administrator can
create the following directories:

a)   D:\DRVS
b)   D:\DRVS\PMDD_1 - contains OS2 print driver diskette 1
c)   D:\DRVS\PMDD_2 - contains OS2 print driver diskette 2
d)   D:\DRVS\PMDD_3 - contains OS2 print driver diskette 3
e)   D:\DRVS\PMDD_4 - contains OS2 print driver diskette 4
f)   D:\DRVS\PMDD_5 - contains OS2 print driver diskette 5

The administrator can then set up a shared print queue
for users to the D:\DRVS directories.

On the print server:

• Create a shared dir on the server.  It's sharename must be PRINTDRV.
• Give everyone Read access to it.
• Copy the *.DRV, *.DR_, *.EA, and *.HLP files for all printers you wish to support, to this directory, or to a dir which adheres to the guidelines above.
• Let WSeB propogate the Permissions (ACLs).
• Update the printer driver on the server, using this directory as the source.
• Make certain that the printer is shared, and that sufficient Permissions have been set to allow normal usage.  At least "Create" access is required.

On the clients:

• OS/2 System->System Setup
  • RMB on "Spooler",
  • Dbl-click on "Properties",
  • Select "Advanced Options" tab,
  • Under "Printer driver synchronization", Select "Update printer drivers after login", and take note of the "Update printer drivers now" button, for future reference.
• Log on to server.
• At OS/2 prompt, type, "net view \\servername", where "servername" = the name of the print server.  Verify that the shared resource, PRINTDRV is available; it does not have to be mapped to a drive letter.
• Remove the old printer object, if present.
• DnD the "Network Printer" template to an empty place.
• On the dialogue that follows, choose the domain (leave as "LS" for most installations), the server, and the network printer's sharename.  A dialogue may appear, "Printer driver must be installed".  If so, you probably didn't get the Spooler's "Update driver" box checked.  Otherwise, you'll see a brief status message while the printer driver is automatically fetched from the server, via the PRINTDRV directory.
  • RMB on the newly-defined printer,
  • Dbl-click on "Properties",
  • Select "Advanced Options" tab,
  • [check] Select the boxes, "Update Job Properties" and "Updated [something else]".

Bear in mind that, in general, if anybody changes a job property -- even at a workstation -- it will get saved to the print server's object, and will later propogate to other workstations as they log on.  That is, if someone changes the "Installed RAM" or tells the driver that there is a duplexer installed, eventually everyone will see that change. In the test case, the printer driver automatically updated from 30.517 to 30.734, but when I later copied 30.740 files to PRINTDRV, logged off clients and logged them back on, the driver was not automatically updated.  In this case, I had to use the Spooler's "Update printer driver now" button to force an update.

Comments welcome; I'm a newcomer to WSeB.