Date:  October 28, 1987  
Number:  198

Title: PRINTING OPERATIONS ON NONDEDICATED 286 FILE SERVERS

       THIS TECHNICAL BULLETIN PROVIDES FURTHER INFORMATION    
       RELATING TO BULLETIN #195

It has been discovered that printing in BASIC or with Lotus 1-2-3
(version 2.01 and above) appears to cause the nondedicated workstation to
hang for a short time, after which a "device unavailable" error is generated
to the screen and the print process is aborted.  (This happens regardless of
whether the workstation is spooled and on all versions of nondedicated
NetWare.)

To do printing from a nondedicated server, either a local printer or a
server printer may be installed on a given LPT port, but not both.  This is
done to prevent any chance of interleaving the middle of a local print job
with a server print job or vice versa.

During server installation, LPT1, by default, is installed as a server printer
port.  When the server is booted, it zeroes out the DOS LPT1 port address
area in memory to indicate that LPT1 is not available to do local printing. 
If the port address is zero, the workstation will timeout and generate the
error message to the screen.

The solution is to place a non-zero value in the LPT1 port address area. 
To do this, the program PRFIX.COM was written.  It can be put into the
login script or be run after logging in, but must be done before the first
printing by any Lotus 1-2-3 or BASIC program.  PRFIX.COM only needs to
be run once, since the value it places in the LPT1 port address remains
unchanged until the server is rebooted again.  Logging in and out will not
change it.

When the file server/workstation is used to run applications, it should be
noted that file server processes must share CPU time with the running
applications. Depending on the intensity of the application, the impact on
file server processes will vary.  It is most noted when printing from the file
server.

When the file server/workstation is running an application, the printer may
run slower than if the file server/workstation is sitting at a DOS prompt or
is in a "console" mode.  Whenever multiple large print operations must be
performed, it is recommended that the file server/workstation either be left
at a DOS prompt or placed in console mode.

PRFIX.COM is available from NetWire or the LANSWER group.

Lotus is a trademark of Lotus Development Corporation.
NetWare is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc.
NetWire is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc.