Printer Pooling.

Glort · June 5, 2011

I am trying to get my printers to poll in win7.

I have done this before in XP with no probs but 7 is giving me nightmares.
After installing the printer driver on both USB ports and ticking sharing and printer pooling, i8 connect the printers and then i get 2 more printers come up in teh devise/ printer manager when I should just have the one.

At this stage the only thing I can think of it aht I am putting the drivers on the wrong ports which are the only ones coming up available.
I downloaded a program which seemed to indicate the printers are on USB 4&5 but in teh port tab that comes up during installation it shows only 1& 2 as being free.

Is there a way to see what ports the printers are being installed to and clear all the other ports that aren't being used? Yes, i have them all activated.

Are there any other tricks to printer pooling in 7?
I have looked at the online tutorials to no avail and feel there may just be one little thing I'm missing.

Very frustrating to spend about 6 hours trying to do something that should take 60 sec which was how long it took all teh times before!

Glort · June 6, 2011

Must be another of my too hard Questions !

Glort · June 7, 2011

richy wrote: »

Not sure entirely where this is going wrong so apologies if this is off the mark IIRC the method was to install both printers as normal (as you would for non pooling use) then go to one printer (call it the primary) and do as you said (properties, ports, enable pooling, select the secondary printer port which should show up as the printer is fully installed and connected, apply).

I could be misreading your approach but I think you are installing the printer software and setting up pooling before you actually attach the printers, then when you attach the printers windows 'helpfully' decides that those usb ports are taken and puts the printers on two different ports hence excluding them from the pool. I believe you need to fully install them then setup pooling and when you go to the ports panel then two installed printers should be listed. I would remove all the 'phantom' and real printers and do a fresh install for each. It's been a few years so I could be stuffing this up!

Nope, As i understand it, that s what you do and that's what Ii have done.

Very frustrating as it should be so straightforward and simple as there isn't much ( I thought) to do wrong or have an incorrect setting with.

I have got just the one icon showing up now and all the pooling and sharing boxes checked and went to some trouble to make sure I also had the printers plugged into the same usb's as were checked but still seems to want to print to the one machine.

Think I'll leave it a day or 2 and see if any revelations hit me in what i'm doing wrong.
Thanks for the input, at least it confirms I have done the majority of it right!

angevin1 · June 7, 2011

Glort wrote: »

I am trying to get my printers to poll in win7.

Are there any other tricks to printer pooling in 7?

Do I understand that you have more than one computer and you want those computers to all Share a printer? If so, I'll be glad to give you my 2 cents.

angevin1 · June 7, 2011

richy wrote: »

Nope

Apologies Glort I feel your pain!

Ha! With Windows 7? Pain travels way to far for me to escape!

Though, when I first read what GLORT was up to, I thought his port stuff was afoul. Check here.

Glort · June 8, 2011

Thanks for the link Tom.
It was one I had seen already and followed.

I'm wondering if something else is interfering with them working. I have done this before ( On XP) and it was no trouble at all. Worked completely as advertised!
I think it must just be my systems.

I might grab another computer and load it up and see if that works and if so, just load the basics I need and use it as a print server.

The printers are working fine on the machines, they just aren't working the way they should and i want. At worst I'll just have to manually send one batch to one printer and the next batch to the other. The result will be the same, just a couple more buttons to make it happen!

I was going to try to get ambitious and connect 4 printers to the one machine. I have 2 units of 2 different model printers and I was going to see if it were possible to create 2 pools on the one machine but i can't even get one pool to work let alone 2!

Then again maybe if I tried for the 2 pools they might all work Fine!

angevin1 · June 9, 2011

Glort wrote: »

Thanks for the link Tom.
It was one I had seen already and followed.

I'm wondering if something else is interfering with them working. I have done this before ( On XP) and it was no trouble at all. Worked completely as advertised!
I think it must just be my systems.

I might grab another computer and load it up and see if that works and if so, just load the basics I need and use it as a print server.

The printers are working fine on the machines, they just aren't working the way they should and i want. At worst I'll just have to manually send one batch to one printer and the next batch to the other. The result will be the same, just a couple more buttons to make it happen!

I was going to try to get ambitious and connect 4 printers to the one machine. I have 2 units of 2 different model printers and I was going to see if it were possible to create 2 pools on the one machine but i can't even get one pool to work let alone 2!

Then again maybe if I tried for the 2 pools they might all work Fine!

I figured you may have seen it. I have Win7 on three machines now, and I can attest to it's lack of ease in getting it to play well in Groups. I'd do as richy suggested, but perhaps first, I'd undo all of the 'do's you did and then retry it via another recipe.

Printer Pooling.

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