I am not an IT professional. I am an engineer that has been responsible for
the CADD systems here for years. In order to utilize the drivers provided by
our CADD software provider for our plotters, I use the Net Use DOS command to
direct virtual printer ports (LPT2, LPT3, LPT4...) to their respective
network addresses. The printer drivers that we use are editable and using
these generic names is easier than providing the entire path in each driver.
Anyway, on to my question. Let me preface by saying, I have asked our IT
professional and I get the deer in the headlight look and really feel as
though they don't have a clue (suprise, suprise.) One even asked what Net
Use did!! I digress. Is there a way in Vista to make these assignments from
the OS without going to the cmd shell? Here is an example of the command
line that I input:

net use lpt2 \\printserver\printer_name /persistent:yes.

The final question is, how do I do the above command from within Vista?

I'm just curious.

Thanks,
Benny

Hello Benny,

Your Net Use below is correct and if you wish you can write a Visual Basic
script so when a user logs in it's runs the script in the background;
although that method does create you more work as you have to manually
assign this to each user or PC

Lee

"Benny" <Benny@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0F4B43CF-067E-4D2E-860A-608B40EC61E7@microsoft.com...[color=blue]
>I am not an IT professional. I am an engineer that has been responsible
>for
> the CADD systems here for years. In order to utilize the drivers provided
> by
> our CADD software provider for our plotters, I use the Net Use DOS command
> to
> direct virtual printer ports (LPT2, LPT3, LPT4...) to their respective
> network addresses. The printer drivers that we use are editable and using
> these generic names is easier than providing the entire path in each
> driver.
> Anyway, on to my question. Let me preface by saying, I have asked our IT
> professional and I get the deer in the headlight look and really feel as
> though they don't have a clue (suprise, suprise.) One even asked what Net
> Use did!! I digress. Is there a way in Vista to make these assignments
> from
> the OS without going to the cmd shell? Here is an example of the command
> line that I input:
>
> net use lpt2 \\printserver\printer_name /persistent:yes.
>
> The final question is, how do I do the above command from within Vista?
>
> I'm just curious.
>
> Thanks,
> Benny
>[/color]

"Benny" <Benny@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0F4B43CF-067E-4D2E-860A-608B40EC61E7@microsoft.com...[color=blue]
>I am not an IT professional. I am an engineer that has been responsible
>for
> the CADD systems here for years. In order to utilize the drivers provided
> by
> our CADD software provider for our plotters, I use the Net Use DOS command
> to
> direct virtual printer ports (LPT2, LPT3, LPT4...) to their respective
> network addresses. The printer drivers that we use are editable and using
> these generic names is easier than providing the entire path in each
> driver.
> Anyway, on to my question. Let me preface by saying, I have asked our IT
> professional and I get the deer in the headlight look and really feel as
> though they don't have a clue (suprise, suprise.) One even asked what Net
> Use did!! I digress. Is there a way in Vista to make these assignments
> from
> the OS without going to the cmd shell? Here is an example of the command
> line that I input:
>
> net use lpt2 \\printserver\printer_name /persistent:yes.
>
> The final question is, how do I do the above command from within Vista?[/color]


You can add those commands to a login script, or if this is a print server
that does not get logged into during the working day you can use a startup
script instead. Logon scripts are very easy to add to a user profile, but
startup scripts are a little more involved, and I am unsure of the best way
to achieve it in Vista.

The easiest way to add a logon batch script is to right click Computer >
Manage

Go to Local Users and Groups and find your user profile. Double click it
and go to the Profile tab. Add the location of your login script in the
Logon script box.

ss.

Vista requires admins to explicitly tell the system they wish a command to
'run as admin' RightClick start/.../system tools/command prompt. 'run as
admin'. Run the command.

To make this easy in Vista, use the Properties of that command prompt icon
to set it to run as admin all the time, there is a checkbox.

Also, create a shortcut to run the command, and set the properties of the
shortcut to 'run as admin'
"cmd /c "net use ..."
--
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Mark L. Ferguson

..
"Benny" <Benny@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0F4B43CF-067E-4D2E-860A-608B40EC61E7@microsoft.com...[color=blue]
>I am not an IT professional. I am an engineer that has been responsible
>for
> the CADD systems here for years. In order to utilize the drivers provided
> by
> our CADD software provider for our plotters, I use the Net Use DOS command
> to
> direct virtual printer ports (LPT2, LPT3, LPT4...) to their respective
> network addresses. The printer drivers that we use are editable and using
> these generic names is easier than providing the entire path in each
> driver.
> Anyway, on to my question. Let me preface by saying, I have asked our IT
> professional and I get the deer in the headlight look and really feel as
> though they don't have a clue (suprise, suprise.) One even asked what Net
> Use did!! I digress. Is there a way in Vista to make these assignments
> from
> the OS without going to the cmd shell? Here is an example of the command
> line that I input:
>
> net use lpt2 \\printserver\printer_name /persistent:yes.
>
> The final question is, how do I do the above command from within Vista?
>
> I'm just curious.
>
> Thanks,
> Benny
>[/color]