University of Turku

Windows 98 TCP/IP printing

You have a local network with a PC with Windows 98 and a printer connected straright to this network. Your PC and printer have both an IP. Lets say your PC is 192.168.1.20 and your printer is 192.168.1.240. In most cases you get an installation program with the printer, which takes care of the network settins. Nowadays (2010) it is getting harder to get these drivers for Win98.

What to do ?
Start by checking if there is a TCP/IP port in the printer properties.
If not, copy this HPSPM98.EXE from HP (1.2 MB) . It works for any brand , not only HP.
HP has new versions of this system, but they might be for WinXP and later. You remember that there has allways been problems with Win98 drivers in WinXP.
Copy the program to your PC and run it. It installs a tcp/ip -port to your system.

You can use printer from the list of Win98. Other some good generic printers are :
Apple NT II for PostScript
HP Laserjet II (HP LJ 4u ?) for PCL,
Canon LPB 8II (HP LJ 4i ?) for CAPSL, and
Generic Text printer for straight text.
Generic Text printer works best when you have straight text without graphics, fonts and formatting. Still you can use it to print anything graphical, but you got to know how. (Btw, this Generic Text printer is allmost the same as IBM Graphics printer or Epson MX-80. Most matrix printers can be run with drivers for one of them.)

While installing the program it asks the IP of your printer. Have it ready and write it in there. The program generates a funny looking port for the printer. This port is OK, do not change it.
The program does not ask many questions and anything is rather straightforward.

There is not wery much information anywhere in the NET. If you have some, please inform me.

PTMUSTA at UTU.FI