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[NKTower]

In my consulting days I often had to replicate a client's hardware environment for regression testing etc. Originally I had hard disks in trays, but that was a bother, I then went to VMware which let me support various OS configurations. The problem was getting to a printer. Peer-to-peer sharing can be a real pain when the printer is hung off a host machine. A much easier way to do it is to add a print server to your network. Your only problem then is to get the driver for your print that is appropriate for the OS.

I happen to be partial to Netgear's PS121v2 mini print server. It consists of a little box about the size of a deck of playing cards which has an ethernet port, a USB port, a 'wall wart' AC adapter and a Cat-5 cable. As of this writing (12/31/2011) you can get one for $12 or less including shipping from various eBay vendors. The one I use has sold over 400 of them. They are factory refurbs, but that hasn't been a problem. Over the years I have installed at least a dozen at client's or friend's sites. The trick is to ignore the Netgear software. (It isn't included, it is a download - just don't bother with it. I suspect that the reason that some of them are considered refurbs is because people had trouble with the installation. So do your own installation.

Connect it to your network, then figure out what IP address it acquired via DHCP. If our router shows connections, that's one way. Another way is to download the free Colasoft MAC Address scanner. (www.colasoft.com) Match the MAC address on the device with the one on the scren to get the IP address. Once you know the IP address, use your browser to access the server's control panel. I like to change the address to a static IP address - just make sure it is outside the range of the DHCP pool managed by your router.

Once wired up, use your add a printer mechanism. The non-intuitive part of this is that you define it as a LOCAL printer rather than a remote printer. Don't have the wizard (assuming you are running Windows) try to find it - it won't. Instead specify that you want a new local port - select "Standard TCP/IP port". This will start another wizard - where you specify the IP address. It will then find the print server. You will be returned to the Add a Printer wizard where you then specify the printer manufacturer from the list, then the model, and load the driver. You are almost done. Go into the printer's property page, select PORTS, select the TCP/IP port and then click Configure Port. Change it to LPR protocol, and name the queue PS121v2. Save things and then try printing a test page. It should work beautifully.

I've done this with Windows 98, 2000 Pro, Mac, Vista, W7, various Windows Servers, and various Linux distributions. Since you are always using the driver made for the particular OS, you don't run into permissions issues, differences between 32-bit and 64-bit machines when doing peer-to-peer, etc.

The PS121v2 is bi-directional, so it should work with multi-function devices. If you have a driver for your OS it should make it available.

You can even drive an old parallel printer if you really want to, but for that you will need a print server with a parallel port. For one client I found an HP JetDirect external device. It was set up in much the same way. Fortunately you aren't likely to run into too many printers with parallel ports these days. The HP device doesn't have a web browser interface - it requires telnet.