Printer Name Changes in Terminal Services

rbuser

Hello All:

We have a Delphi 5 app/RB 6.03 running in terminal services. We store
the name of the printers used by our app in the registry so that the user
does not need to select ther printer themselves. We use dot matrixc printers
for some types of printing and lasers for other types of printing.

We use the printer name to attach to the winspooler.

Under terminal services, the printer name is as follows:
printername\computername\sessionX

Every time the user logs on, the printer name changes because the
session id is changed. Since we store the printer name and use it with a
call to the WIN API, we are getting errors because the printer name has
changed. ( ie Okidata 321\Computer\Session5 vs Okidata
321\Computer\Session2 ).

We need to save the printer name because of user requirements. Any ideas
on a workaround ???

1) When the name is loaded, if it has "Session" in it, do we need to
compare it to the list of current printer names to pick up the current name
???

2) Any other workarounds ???

Thank you.

Neil Huhta

digitalmetaphors

Are you using report templates? If so, then use the
Report.Template.OnLoadEnd event in order to assign the
Report.PrinterSetup.PrinterName to the current
PrinterName\MachineName\SessionID from the WinAPI call. This way you don't
have to save the PrinterName\MachineName\SessionID to the registry but
rather just always get it dynamically at runtime.

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Jim:

We store the reports in .rtm files. However, we dont use reportbuilder
to actually print the reports because we print irregular form sizes on dot
matrix printers ( not supported by printer drivers ).

We load the .rtm file into a ppReport component, then we parse the draw
commands, then attach to the winspooler, then issue escape codes to
precisely control dot matrix printing ( only way to go ).

We dont want our users to have to specify which printer is for dot
matrix printing every time they start our application. We want to select it
once, then use that printer for the specialized dot matrix printing.

We need the name because we use the OpenPrinter API to attach to the
winspooler ( only way to go for direct printing ).

Could I store everything but the \session4, then attach the correct
session id once the user is logged in ???

Do you know how to get the current session ID from terminal services ???

Now that you know more of what we are doing, can you point us in the
correct direction ???


Thank you.


Neil Huhta

rbuser

Jim:

I solved the problem by iterating through the TPrinters list and
comparing the name less the sessionid. It works great.


Neil Huhta