This paper may assist you in understanding the Windows printing environment, and tracing printing problems not caused by BOSâNOVA.

Note! The BOSâNOVA printer emulation can be configured to use the Windows printer driver or a custom driver. If you configured your printer emulation session (that is, the BOSâNOVA Printer Control Panel) to use the current Windows printer driver, GDI and the Windows Print Manager are used. If you use a custom driver, they are bypassed, but printing is sent to the same output port as used by the current Windows printer. The description of the printing environment, and troubleshooting tips provided in this document assume the use of the Windows printer driver.

• overall Windows environment
• print environment for a given application; can override Windows settings
• print setup for a specific file of an application; can override application settings

At the global Windows level, you can define printers, select a default printer and port, set page size and paper source defaults, etc. An application can have its own default settings which override the global Windows settings for those print jobs only, and a single application file can have still different settings, which in turn override the application default settings. Note that all application print settings are, by definition, local settings for that application only; they do not affect the global Windows default settings, which can be changed only from the Control Panel.

1. Open the Control Panel and double-click the Printers icon. This opens a dialog box displaying all connected printers and the current default printer.

2. Click the Connect button. This opens the Connect dialog box, which contains information about the configuration of all the output ports. Since port definitions can change at any time (for example, a new application could be installed on the network and configured for the same port as BOSâNOVA). It is therefore advisable to check the port definitions and their connections if you experience any printing problems.

   When a printer is linked to an output port, and a print job is sent to that printer, the Windows print driver sends the print output to the appropriate port. From this dialog box, you can define or modify the connection of each printer driver to its defined output port.

3. From the Printer Setup dialog box, specify the print settings for your printer. The settings in this dialog box become the default settings. Remember, an application's print settings cannot affect these default settings.

1. An application releases a print job.
2. The print job goes through GDI (Graphical Device Interface--a Windows resource) to the printer driver, if the application is configured to use GDI.
3. The printer driver sends the print job to the destination printer via the Windows Print Manager. If no printer was specified in Setup, the Windows default is used.
4. If at this stage a printer driver was defined, it will connect to the compatible ports. Note that the route a print job travels determines the destination printer. See the flow chart.
5. If there is no network driver or the port is not connected to a network printer, Windows checks to see if it recognizes a port. If not, the printing process is passed to DOS.

• Change the printing directions to see if the job resides elsewhere. For example, let DOS control the print process through LPTn.

  Windows can't recognize the DOS port LPTn.DOS. On the other hand, DOS looks at only the first four letters of a port name, so that LPT1 and LPT1.DOS are seen by DOS as the same port. This lets you modify the port name so that DOS captures can be specifically routed. If experiencing printing problems through Windows, you can attempt printing via DOS capture; if DOS controls the print process, you can bypass potential problems in the Windows print process.

• Check each of the following stages of the Windows print process to determine if a problem occurred:
  1. If there isn't sufficient disk space, no warning is given. GDI writes a Windows metafile (~MF????.TMP) to the Temp directory. The Temp directory is specified by the SET TEMP= command in AUTOEXEC.BAT.

     The printer driver writes a spool file (~SP????.TMP) to the Temp directory. Graphic printing requires a large amount of disk space in the Temp directory for the Windows metafiles and spoolfiles. This disk space is not released until the application is done processing the print job.

     Action: Make sure you have enough available disk space. When printing to a laser printer, note that files with graphics can require sizable amounts of disk space. A single complicated text screen could require as much as 8 MB!

  2. A connection is made between GDI and the printer driver. This connection can be made by the printer setup of the application which originated the print job. If none was specified, GDI will connect to the Windows default driver (defined in the Control Panel).

     Action: Make sure you are using the correct driver, compatible with your printer, and that the printer itself is in the correct mode.

  3. A connection is made between the printer driver and the network driver. This connection is set in the Control Panel (Printers|Connect|Network). Note that each port of LPTn can be connected to any printer defined in the network.

  4. A connection is made between the printer driver and DOS interrupts or BIOS. You can configure for BIOS by selecting the Fast Printing Direct to Port checkbox in the Connect dialog box (Control Panel|Printers).

  5. Network redirection in DOS occurs (via DOS capture).

     Action: If you want to print via LPTn and via DOS capture, make sure that Fast Printing Direct to Port is NOT selected.

  6. It is possible to print to a file, instead of directly to the printer. The file can then be sent to the printer at a later time. When printing to a specific file, you can define an output name (such as PRINTFIL.000). Windows can't recognize this as output, and passes the print control to DOS. DOS then sends the print job to a file with the same file name as the output name (in this example, PRINTFIL.000).

Even if a network driver is used, print redirection may not occur if the network driver sends the print job to the output port as if it was directly connected in the Network dialog box.