Windows 7 - Printer Port Redirection

Recently a friend of mine requested some help. He is facing some problems where the new computer he bought only have USB ports available but his existing printer is using LPT port.

In this the kind of scenario, commonly people will tends to get a USB-LPT converter available in any computer shop. And does him, which he went to Plaza Low Yat to buy that particular converter.

Now the connection problems is now solved, how about installing it ?

It just happens that the printer he wanted to use is Epson TM-U210, it's a dot matrix receipt printer type that are commonly used in P.O.S. (Point Of Sales System), so he did some downloads of the drivers in Epson's website and to his surprise Windows kept on displaying an error message stating

"There are no compatible drivers available or the path is incorrect......"

So this where I comes in, remoting to the said computer via TeamViewer (I was at work that time) and force the printer to be installed as "Generic/Text Only" printer. Tested the print test page and it works just fine, even printing from a notepad also works.

But here is another catch, the software or P.O.S. system his company is using only supports LPT1, Com1 type of connection (pretty old), so I've paused for a while trying to search my mind how to solve this problems and voila !

Follow the below steps :-

1. Ensure the printer's driver is installed, either use "Generic/Text Only" or use manufacturer's provided drivers.
2. Share the printer, use a short common name (eg. "Receipt").
3. Run --> Command Prompt with elevated privilege.
4. Type --> NET USE LPT1 \\[PC Name]\[Printer's Share Name] /PERSISTENT:YES
5. Now the printer should be printing like normal.

Example : C:\>NET USE LPT1 \\MyPC\MyReceipt /PERSISTENT:YES

What it does is by telling Windows to accept all incoming connections for LPT1 port and redirect it to the network path with auto-reconnect enabled. In this case its a loop back network path (to itself).

Just a simple and brilliant workaround. :)