kmosx2: How to Print to Windows in Jaguar

01/27/05. This post provides advanced steps that will allow any Mac running CUPS (OSX 10.2) to print to printers connected to Windows computers. 10.2.6 and the 03-24-03 security update breaks this. See http://homepage.mac.com/williamwhite/print_towindows.html for workaround, detailed step by step and further troubleshooting help and hints. Panther takes care of this....

Overview:
Install and share printer on PC.
Link the CUPS backend command to the smbspool command.
Add the windows printer from Print Center using the Advanced option.
If necessary, install ESP Ghostscript for CUPS.

The example below uses an Epson 740i attached to a Windows2000 Pro laptop from a PowerMac G4/450 MHz.

1. Make sure the printer is first working on the PC, drivers installed etc. and that Sharing printers is enabled on the PC. Note the printer's shared name as shown in the Printers panel. This will be needed in step 6 below.

2. As a user with administrative privileges, in the terminal, type

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/smbspool /usr/libexec/cups/backend/smb

Enter your admin password when prompted. There is no informative message. Type exit.

3. Open Print Center and click "Add Printer" with the [option] key held. This takes you to the Print Center's Advanced options.

4. Select the [Advanced] option which is now visible at the bottom of the drop down menu at the top of the Print Center pane. Another drop down menu labeled Device will appear.

5. In the Device drop down, you should see about 8 options.
Select Device: [Windows Printer via SAMBA] and go to Step 6.

If you do not see the [Windows Printer via SAMBA] option, there may be a problem with Step 2. If you did not restart after Step 2, try that before continuing with Step 3. The following terminal command will verify that the CUPS backend is correctly linked to the Samba windows spooler:

ls -l /usr/libexec/cups/backend/smb

A correct response looks like:
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 17 Feb 15 19:41 /usr/libexec/cups/backend/smb -> /usr/bin/smbspool

6. Give the Device a name (this name will appear in the Print Center list of printers).

7. Enter the printer's Device URI in the form:

smb://username:password@workgroup/server/sharename

sharename is the Windows shared printer name
server is the computer name
workgroup is the workgroup (eg. mshome) or full domain name (eg. mywork.com)
username and password on the Windows machine or as registered in NT Domain

Alternative URI form:

smb://username@server/sharename

8. Select the printer type. In this case of Epson COLOR Stylus 740i, select ESP > Epson Color Stylus Series CUPS v1.1.

9. I found it necessary to install the latest ESP Ghostscript 7.05.5 for Mac OS X. Without that, the print jobs appear to print to the PC, but very slowly, and don't actually print after queueing. Find this at the gimp-print site here:

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3

Restart after installing.

You may want both the gimp-print and espgs software.

10. NEW - Troubleshooting

Print Center status is connection failure/waiting 60 seconds to retry. Often you must supply the username and the username password for the PC even if the printer is shared without a password. Or this may be the security update problem, in which case replace smbspool with the original 10.2.4 version. See instructions on my homepage.

Print Center shows transfer stall at 49% or 70% of page 1, and/or you see the transfer on PC start then disappear, but no print. Try a different Spool setting in PC Printer Properties Advanced tab. Possibly best is "Start printing after last page is spooled"

Try Repair Permissions.

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