UniPrint Support

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2010-09-30T07:17:00.000-04:00

Technical - General

Technical - UniPrint

UniPrint Products

UniPrint Business

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Why now you don’t need to reboot after installing UniPrint Server 7?

2010-05-16T00:34:00.004-04:00

Previously with version 6, after installing UniPrint Server, you need to reboot the machine for the software to take effect. (Read more here.)

With the new version 7, you don't need to reboot the machine. Why? Because UniPrint now writes the full path of logscrpt.exe in the registry key that controls remote session program startup: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd\StartupPrograms (Read more about this registry key here)

In previous versions, UNiPrint wrote only the program name logscrpt.exe in the registry key. Now it writes the full path, typically, C:\Program Files\UniPrint Suite\.

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Bug Report: UniPrint 7

2010-04-04T19:17:00.000-04:00

We were informed by a UniPrint reseller that UniPrint version 7 just came out last month (March, 2010). We decided to give it a try before we decide if we should upgrade from our version 6.1.5 to it.

We installed the new UniPrint 7 onto our test server machine running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. It was completed without any problems. Then we connected to this test server through RDP. Right after we logged in, we had this “Hardware Installation” warning message right on the center of the RDP session:

(Click here to see a larger picture)

This certainly did not look good at all. We clicked the “STOP Installation” button, and the same message came back right away. So it seemed that we had no other choice than clicking the “Continue Anyway” button. And that was what we did. The message box went away, but only for a short while. It came back again.

At this point, we decided to go ahead and finish our tests. We printed a simple document from notepad, choosing the printer Uniprint. Contrary to our expectation, the print job did come through with no problem from the RDP session to our local machine and printed on our HP printer fine.

We then kept clicking the “STOP Installation” button for a while; eventually it seemed to have gone away because it did not reappear.

We then logged off from the remote RDP session, and logged back in to the test server, and the same thing happened again. We tried that a few times, and sometimes we even had problem trying to log off.

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UniPrint Version 7 Licensing

2010-03-20T19:17:00.000-04:00

As UniPrint users know, printing through UniPrint without a valid license will have a UniPrint banner printed diagonally across all printed pages. (Read more about UniPrint license and banner here.)

UniPrint version 7 came out with a different architecture in terms of its licensing scheme. In previous versions, the license is installed on the UniPrint Server (now called the Application Server), and was tied to that server by the server’s hostname and ip address.

Let’s say you have two UniPrint Servers, each having a valid license. In version 6, this means that you will have two license files: one file ties to server A with server A’s machine name and ip address, the other file ties to server B with server B’s machine name and ip address. You can only use the first file on server A only, not on server B, and likewise with the second file.

With version 7, licensing has been moved from individual Application Server (or UniPrint Server in old terminology) to a centralized License Server. This License Server resides with the Spool Server, so in order for you to install the License Server, you’ll have to also install the Spool Server. Fortunately, both come in the same installation (.msi) package.

With this new licensing scheme, licenses for all previous will not work with version 7. That means existing users will have to upgrade their older licenses to get a new corresponding version 7 license. Users are strongly cautioned to test out version 7 prior to deploying UniPrint into production.

In the scenario above, if you decide to have the two version 6 licenses installed on the same License Server in version 7, you will have to upgrade your licenses. Upgrade can be done through UniPrint's website. After the upgrade, you should receive in email a new version 7 license in one single file that contains information of your two previous version 6 licenses.

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What’s New in UniPrint Version 7?

2010-03-13T19:17:00.002-05:00

Despite UniPrint’s website said that UniPrint Version 7 would be available in January 2010 (and in early February changed to “contact UniPrint”), UniPrint version 7 finally came out in early March 2010. What’s new with this two-month overdue product?

Taken out from the first chapter of the admin guide, the new features of UniPrint version 7 are:

Redesigned UniPrint Management Console:
The UniPrint Management Console has been redesigned to improve efficiency and usability, making it more intuitive to use and configure UniPrint components on remote servers as well as the local server can also be managed from any server. Debugging options have been moved to the Components screen, under Properties & Settings.

Improved Licensing Scheme:
UniPrint is still licensed per application server. However, applying a different license file on each individual application server is no longer required. UniPrint now utilizes a license server component that is installed on one of the UniPrint Spool Servers and the license file is applied to this designated license server. Network administrators also have the ability to monitor and track license usage in real time.

The following features are in the UniPrint Gateway Edition only.

Support for Thin Client USB Printers:
Extending the support for thin-client devices running WindowsXPe/ Embedded Standard, UniPrint now also supports USB printers attached to thin-client devices running Windows CE/Embedded CE.

Improved Printer Properties Support:
For printer properties like paper tray, forms and resolution, the actual printer property value is now imported from the native printer driver.

Support for Secure Printing:
UniPrint now supports HP printers with secure printing capability where print jobs are not printed until users enter their PIN codes at the physical printer. Currently, the following printer drivers are supported: HP Universal Printing PCL 5, HP Universal Printing PCL 5 (v 5.0), HP Universal Printing PCL 6, HP Universal Printing PCL 6 (v 5.0), HP Universal Printing PS and HP Universal Printing PS (v 5.0).

Support for Advanced Printer Functions:
Network administrators can now create unique printer profiles with different combinations of advanced printer functionalities (such as stapling, hole punching, binding, etc.) enabled according to users’ specific printer requirements.

New Functionalities to Further Reduce Bandwidth Consumption:
Two new functionalities have been added to further reduce print job size, improve overall printing speed and reduce bandwidth consumption.

Font Replication - Once a day at a prescheduled time UniPrint queries all terminal servers for newly installed fonts and replicates them to all print servers. This feature creates a smaller print job and improves the overall printing speed and print job quality.

Font Caching – When full font embedding is selected, UniPrint strips the font objects from the compressed PDF print job before sending it to the Print Server. At the Print Server, UniPrint then rebuilds the font objects before printing. This reduces the print job size for subsequent print jobs with the same font objects.

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Printing from Unix to Windows (Part 2)

2010-02-14T19:17:00.000-05:00

In Part 1, we talked about how to print from any non-Windows machine (such as a Unix machine) that supports the lpr protocol to a printer accessible from a Windows system.

When a print job comes from a non-Windows system, it can be non-formatted (i.e. plain text, or it can be formatted (e.g. a PCL file or a PostScript file). When the file arrives at a Windows system (your XP machine), the lpd does some formatting. For example, if a text file contains long lines, it will wrap a long line at its right margin instead of truncating the long line at the right margin. That’s nice.

However, if the file is already formatted in certain format, you probably don’t want Windows to add format to it again. To achieve this, all you need to do is to navigate to the hive
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LPDSVC\Parameters, and add a “new -> DWORD value” key named “SimulatePassThrough”, and set its value to 1.

After adding this key, you have to restart the “Printer Spooler” services, which will also restart the “TCP/IP Print Server” service. Just click OK.

This regkey tells Windows’ lpd not to add any formatting to the file, just simply pass it through to the printer.

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Printing from Unix to Windows (Part 1)

2010-02-07T19:17:00.011-05:00

Last time we talked about LPR/LPD Printing. This time, we’ll see how to put it into practical use.

Let's say you have a Unix machine and an XP machine, and you have an HP printer locally attached to your XP machine. You want to print a file on your Unix machine, but you don’t want to disconnect your HP printer from your XP machine and connect it to your Unix machine just to print that file, and then reconnect the printer back to your XP machine. Is there a better way of doing this?

Yes, this is how:

First, you need to add certain windows component on your XP machine to make this happen: On your XP machine, click Start -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Program, then click "Add/Remove Windows Components" on the left pane.

Scroll down to “Other Network File and Print Services”, click the Details button.

Select “Print Services for Unix”, then click OK.

Click “Next”, and it will start installing this component. Depending on what other components you have installed on your system, it may ask you for the Windows CD.

Next, click Start -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Scroll down and you should see the “TCP/IP Print Server”. This is the new service installed. It is started., and the start mode is manual.

You may want to change this service to start automatically every time you start your system. To do so, highlight “TCP/IP Print Server” and right-click, and select Properties from the context menu. Change the startup type to Automatic, and click OK.

Now you have the lpd (line printer daemon) running. Next is to set up a print queue.

Click Start -> Printer and Faxes. Let’s say you have a printer called “HP LaserJet 4000” locally attached to your XP machine. Remove the spaces in the printer name by renaming it to “HPLaserJet4000” because Unix doesn’t like printer names with spaces.

That's it! The last thing you need to know is the machine name or the ip address of your machine. If you don’t know the info, read this article to find out how. Fill in the name of the printer or print queue on that server.

Let's say if your machine's ip address is 192.168.1.123.

Next, you have to define your HPLaserJet4000 printer on your Unix machine. Once done, you can start printing from Unix using the lpr command. The syntax varies with different flavors of Unix/Linux. The command may look something like this:
lpr -PHPLaserJet4000 myfile.txt

You can even do the test using another windows machine. On another windows machine, open up a command window (Start -> Run, then type cmd). In the command window, type:
lpr –S 192.168.1.123 –P HPLaserJet4000 myfile.txt

If it complains that "Host 192.168.1.123 is unknown", try pinging your XP machine. If it fails to ping your XP machine, most likely it's the firewall settings on your XP machine that's preventing this. Start -> Control Panel -> Windows Firewall. You probably will have to adjust your firewall settings.

It’s worth noting that this works not just for any locally attached printer (via the LPT1: port, or a USB port), it also works for any printer accessible from your XP machine, be it a TCP/IP printer, or a printer attached to a print server.

That means, you have this set up in an office environment so that printouts from any application running on a non-Windows system (such as Unix/Linux systems or any legacy systems) can be re-directed to and printed on a Windows system – as long as the non-Windows system has the lpr capability.

Part 2

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LPR/LPD Printing

2010-01-30T19:17:00.005-05:00

What is LPR/LPD?

LPR/LPD is a printing protocol that runs over TCP/IP. Originally implemented for BSD UNIX, its use has spread into other platforms such as AS/400 and legacy mainframe systems. It has essentially become a de-facto industry standard for cross-platform and platform-independent printing, which is a huge advantage of LPR/LPD printing.

The specifications for LPR are defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Request for Comment 1179 (RFC-1179).

LPR stands for Line Printer Request. It refers to the process that sends print jobs to a remote printer or print queue. It is requesting the service of a print server, so it is the client side of LPR/LPD, and thus is often called the 'LPR client'.

LPD stands for Line Printer Daemon. It refers to the process that accepts print jobs from the LPR client. It is providing a service, so it is the server side of LPR/LPD, and thus is often called the 'LPD server. A daemon is a process running on a UNIX machine, providing services.

How does LPR work?

LPR client sends a request to port 515, the standard port for the LPR/LPD protocol. And the LPD server listens on the same port 515.

When the LPR client sends a print job to the LPD server, it send two files: a data file (the actual data to be printed), a control file.

The data file contains the actual data to be printed. It can be binary of text, depending on the actual format of the print file, or the application that generates the print file.

The name of the data file should start with "dfA", followed by a three digit job number, then followed by the host name that has constructed the data file.

The control file contains information that describes the data file (such as the format of the print data file, e.g., postscript, plain text, FORTRAN carriage control, etc.) and what to do with the data file (such as printing banner page, delete after print, or email after print).

The control file is a plain text file, and its file name should start with "cfA", followed by a three digit job number, followed by the host name which has constructed the control file.

Obviously, the "d" in the "dfA" prefix means data, and the "c" in the "cfA" prefix means control.

RFC-1179 does not impose on the order of the two files to be sent; i.e., one can send the control file first, or the data file first. However, some implementations may stipulate one way or the other, e.g., data file first, followed by control file.

In the future, we will show you how to print from non-windows systems to windows systems using this LPR/LPD protocol.

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UniPrint and .Net

2010-01-23T19:17:00.005-05:00

We came across this podcast on DABCC Radio posted on January 14, 2010. UniPrint’s VP of Software Development Arron Fu was interviewed by Douglas Brown to talk about the upcoming new version 7 of UniPrint.

Arron Fu mentioned that UniPrint will be released "at the end of this year, or the beginning of next year." This would mean that UniPrint will come out by December 2010, or January 2011, which is contradictory to what says on their website. On their website, their banner says UniPrint version 7 is available January 2010. Probably it’s because the interview was done in 2009, but only posted recently.

As well, about 7 minutes 30 seconds into the audio clip, Arron Fu talked about the new things in version 7, one of them being "a new graphic interface, or the console". He continued to reveal that they "were able to rewrite the console completely in .Net platform."

Microsoft’s .Net technology has been around for about ten years by now, and UniPrint has just started writing their products in the .Net platform. Hmm, that makes one wonder, UniPrint being a software technology company, where they are on the technology curve.

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UniPrint's New Website

2010-01-15T19:17:00.004-05:00

UniPrint’s old website had been decommissioned in early December last year, replaced by the new website with a completely new look. Below are the screenshots of the old and the new websites of UniPrint.

Old UniPrint Website

New UniPrint Website

After playing with the new website, it basically works the same way as the old one, without much functionality added. Actually, the forum was taken offline, which is a big no-no.

The old old forum should be made available because it provides a good medium for UniPrint users to exchange ideas and share experience on using UniPrint products. We guess this website will have to take up more of the forum functionality of sharing ideas and experiences among the UniPrint community.

Also of interest in this new website is its big banner announcing that Version 7 will be available in January 2010. It is just about two more weeks from today to the end of January. So Version 7 should be out any day now. Stay tuned. We’ll be testing version 7 when it’s available.

Our internal helpers hinted that the new website had been under construction for more than two years. Hmm… , that’s interesting.

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Remote Session Startup Programs

2010-01-08T19:17:00.003-05:00

In a typical environment, a user connects to a central server in the server room through her desktop or laptop at her own cubicle, or even at her home. Once connected, this establishes a remote session from the user’s machine to the central server.

In Windows environment, this is usually done either through Microsoft’s Terminal Services or through Citrix’s servers (such as the Presentation Server). Certain programs are run right after establishing the remote session. These programs are stored in the registry of the central server.

Microsoft uses rdp, their proprietary protocol, for remote connection. And rdp stands for Remote Desktop Protocol.

Citrix uses their proprietary protocol ica for remote connection. And ica stands for Independent Computing Architecture.

For Microsoft Terminal Services, the registry key is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd\StartupPrograms

For Citrix, the registry key is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\icawd\StartupPrograms

Wd means working directoriy (and Wds means, of course, working directories).

The StartupPrograms key is of string (REG_SZ) type. This key contains a list of programs to be run at remote session startup. The programs are separated by commas. Or the techies would like to call it a “comma-delimited list”.

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UniPrint Plagiarizes? Copycat?

2009-11-27T19:17:00.006-05:00

While doing research on the internet, we stumbled upon this article by Brian Madden (dated April 14, 2004). Though outdated but it still is interesting.

UniPrint and ThinPrint are head-on competitors: they offer products in a narrow market space. Apparently back then in 2004, a webpage on UniPrint reveals this text:

As a Citrix Premium Business Alliance Partner, ThinPrint offers software solutions for ideal print support under Citrix MetaFrame 1.8 and Citrix MetaFrame XP.

Obviously UniPrint plagiarizes from ThinPrint. Can UniPrint do better than being a copycat?

Hope that their software does not come from plagiarism. Otherwise, UniPrint users may be in for big trouble.

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UniPrint License and Banner

2009-11-20T19:17:00.007-05:00

Does any of the UniPrint products solve the printing issues at your organization?

You can evaluate whether UniPrint product is what your organization needs by downloading the UniPrint software from UniPrint’s website. You next install it; the installation is pretty straight forward. Next you test-run it.

The evaluation copy you download has full functionalities of a licensed copy. The only difference is, since it’s unlicensed, that when you print, it also prints a license banner diagonally across all printed pages.

If you don’t want the banner to appear during your evaluation, you can request a demo license by contacting UniPrint’s help desk or salespeople. (You can find the info on UniPrint’s website.) The demo license usually expires in 30 or 60 days.

There are two kinds of banners: One with red text and a dark background that blocks the payload print data. Version 6.1.2 and prior versions have this banner.

UniPrint no-license banner 6.1.2

The other kind of banner is black text with clear background that allows one to see the payload print data. This banner appears on version 6.1.5 and later.

UniPrint no license banner 6.1.5

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Bug Report: Email Printout in UniPrint (Update)

2009-11-13T19:17:00.005-05:00

We posted a bug report about sending out printout from UniPrint using its emailing feature previously.

Of course, we do not have the source code – we have not even seen any UniPrint source code for that matter – so we won’t be able to know for sure if that’s the problem.

We spoke to our internal developers. They suspected that the EnableSsl property of the smtp client instance has not been set to true. If it is, our internal developers said the bug should be an easy one to fix. You just need to add one line of code.

Hope that the UniPrint developers take note of this.

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Bug Report: Email Printout in UniPrint

2009-11-06T19:17:00.007-05:00

Scenario:
Our previous article (How to use the email feature in UniPrint?) shows you how to set up and use the nice feature in UniPrint that lets you email your printout to someone directly when you print to the Uniprint printer. The setup was based on not checking the Server requires authentication checkbox.

However, because of security reasons, email servers nowadays seldom forfeits authentication prior to sending an email. So check the Server requires authentication checkbox now, and a window pops up, asking for credentials. Fill in the user, password, and confirm the password, then click OK. If you need to change the credentials later, just click the Set credentials button.

Now log on to the UniPrint Server via a remote session (Microsoft’s Terminal Services RDP connection, or Citrix’s ICA connection. Open up a document (or type something in Notepad), and click print. When the printer dialogue shows up, select the Uniprint printer (if you have more than one printer installed), and click the preferences button. The Uniprint driver dialogue box show up.

Click the Email tab. Fill in all the fields, or at least the TO: field, and click OK to close the UniPrint Driver dialog box. Next click Print on the Printer dialog box. Then you’ll get this error message box: UniPrint was unable to send your document to the desired recipients.

Versions Affected:
This bug has been confirmed to occur in UniPrint Server 6.1.5, and is expected to occur in all previous versions of 6.x.

Workarounds:
None at this time.

Updates:
None at this time.

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How to Use the Email Feature in UniPrint?

2009-10-30T19:17:00.007-04:00

UniPrint's Server has a nice feature: in addition to being able to print, the user can also email the printout directly to a recipient. In order to use this feature, certain settings have to be set up in the UniPrint Management Console.

Start UniPrint Management Console on the UniPrint Server. Click Driver Properties under Performance & Maintenance. Click the Optional Features tab. The top panel is the Email setup.

Check the Enable email checkbox, fill in the correct email server name (or its IP address). Leave the port to the default value of 25, unless you know your email server uses a different port.

Assuming your email server allows unauthenticated connections, leave the Server requires authentication checkbox unchecked. Fill in the Global sender email address. A weird description that simply means the name that will be displayed on the TO: in the email header when you receive an email.

If your server requires authentication, read our bug report. For now, just click save.

Now log on to the UniPrint Server via a remote session (Microsoft’s Terminal Services RDP connection, or Citrix’s ICA connection. Open up a document (or type something in Notepad), and click print. When the printer dialog shows up, select the Uniprint printer (if you have more than one printer installed), and click the preferences button. The Uniprint driver dialog box shows up.

Click the Email tab. Fill in all the fields, or at least the TO: field, and click OK to close the UniPrint Driver dialog box. Next click Print on the Printer dialog box. Voila! In a few moments, you (or mail recipient you specified in the TO: field) should get an email with the printout as a PDF attachment.

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Search Engines Take Note: Do Not Search UniPrint

2009-10-23T19:17:00.001-04:00

UniPrint is a software development company, no doubt about that.

UniPrint is not a marketing company, also no doubt about that.

Why? Because Uniprint does not want search engine bots to crawl over most of its webpages. It is perfectly legitimate and the right thing to restrict the web bots to access certain areas of the website.

This is usually done by a text file called robots.txt. Like a rule telling kids where they can play and where they cannot, this file tells search engine bots what file and/or directories they can or cannot crawl. Well-behaved bots (such as those from Goolge and Yahoo) respect that, just like well behaved kids obey play rules.

Look at the following screenshot of UniPrint’s robots.txt (accurate as of writing):

UniPrint's robots.txt
(Click here for large image)

You can see that some directories like marketing, Presentation, promotion, releases, UniPrintClientHelp, as their directory names suggest, should grant access to bots so that more related webpages can be indexed by search engines, which will in turn promote the company and its products.

Some UniPrint helpers told us that UniPrint has been working on a completely new look of the Uniprint website which should be in production mode in early November. We will check back and see then.

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Bug Report: UniPrint Server 6.1.5

2009-10-16T19:17:00.002-04:00

Scenario:
On a machine installed with UniPrint Server, from the Printers and Faxes folder, right-click on the UniPrint folder and choose Properties.

On the properties window, click the Security tab, and you’ll see the usual groups here: Adminsitrators, System, and UPUniPrint. Now click Add to add another group (e.g. Accounting). This newly added group stays with the UniPrint printer.

UniPrint Bug Report

But if for whatever reason the machine is rebooted, this newly added group disappears.

Versions Affected:
This bug has been confirmed to occur in version 6.1.5, 6.1.2, 6.1.1, 6.1.0, and possibly older versions.

Workarounds:
None at this time.

Updates:
None at this time.

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Bug Report: UniPrint Host Edition 6.1.4

2009-10-09T19:17:00.007-04:00

Scenario:
Log in as the administrator, or any user with administrative credentials because you need that to install the Host Server component. Install UniPrint Host Edition 6.1.4, Server component (UniPrintHostServer614.msi).

After install, go to Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs, you’ll see UniPrint Host Edition Server 6.1 is there.

Now log off, and then log back in as another user who also has administrative privileges. Go to Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs. Now you don’t see UniPrint Host Edition Server 6.1 listed as one of the installed programs.

Versions Affected:
This bug has been confirmed to occur only in Host Edition 6.1.4, but not in 6.1.2.

Workarounds:
None at this time.

Updates:
None at this time.

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How to Set Up FTP Printer with UniPrint Gateway?

2009-10-02T19:17:00.006-04:00

When you have an FTP printer (read “What are FTP Printers?”), you first need to test it to make sure that all hardware and network connections work. (Read “How to Test FTP Printers?”) UniPrint literature states that when you have an FTP printer, you don’t need to install the UniPrint Print Server component; you just need to install the UniPrint Spool Server component.

After you install UniPrint Spool Server, start the management console. We are using the latest version (version 6.1.5) for our demonstration.

UniPrint Spool Server Management Console

On the management console, click the New Printer button. It will only create FTP printers. Give it a name, like, “Lexmark FTP” since we are using a Lexmark T630 printer after our little experiment on testing FTP printers.

Give a name to the new FTP printer

Then, a window titled “New Printer Properties” pops up. The only important information at this point is in the “FTP Settings” tab. Fill in the IP address of our Lexmark printer (192.168.1.10), and the User ID, which is “anonymous” for our Lexmark printer. And we know that from our little experiment, this account doe not require a password, so we’ll leave the “Password” and “Confirm Password” fields blank. If you printer model requires a password, then fill in these two fields accordingly.

Create an FTP Printer in UniPrint Spool Server

Click OK, and, voila, you’ll see our newly created FTP printer shows up in the management console.

FTP printer created

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How to Test FTP Printers?

2009-09-25T19:17:00.004-04:00

We talked about what FTP printers are. But how do you know that a printer is an FTP printer? Or a better question, how do you know that an FTP printer is actually working?

Essentially, the question is: How to test FTP printers? The following steps show you how:

Let’s assume:

we have a Lexmark printer model T630, which is supposed to be an FTP printer;
we are running Windows (any newer version of Windows) on our PC, and
the Lexmark T630 printer is connected to our Windows PC not via a direct cable, but via a network path.

Let’s further assume that the machine name for this Lexmark T630 is LEX630, and its ip address is 192.168.1.10. We need either piece of information to print to it.

Open a command Windows. (To do this: Click Start button -> Run, and type in cmd in the open box, and click OK.)
Next, we need to reassure ourselves that our PC can actually “talk” to the printer. We use the ping command.

In the command window, type
ping LEX630

If it comes back to say something like
Ping request could not find host LEX630
it means that perhaps our name server is not set up properly, but let’s not worry about it now.

Instead, we turn to the printer’s ip address, which we try to ping:
ping 192.168.1.10

If it comes back with:
Pinging 192.168.1.10 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.10: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=254
that means success; our PC and “talk” to the printer directly. But if it comes back with:
Pinging 192.168.1.10 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
that means problems, usually hardware and/or network problems. Troubleshooting it is beyond the scope of this article. We just assume that we are successful in establishing connection between our PC and the printer, and we move on with our experiment.
Next, let’s further assume that we have a valid pdf file called test.pdf in our temp folder. Still inside the command window, type:
cd %temp%

The %temp% is a variable that represents the actual path to our temp folder. Windows will translate the variable %temp% and set our default folder to our temp folder. And we can do the test to make sure that test.pdf is actually here. Type:
dir test.pdf
Now it’s the exciting part: We are actually going to ftp into the printer. Still in the same command window, type: >ftp 192.168.1.10

It comes back with:
Connected to 192.168.1.10
220 Lexmark T630 FTP Server 55.0.39 ready.
User:

Please note that the exact wording may vary on different implementations of the FTP server by different vendors.
Here it’s asking for a user account. FTP printers should have an anonymous account, so type “anonymous”. This account usually does not require a password. We should see something like this:
230 User anonymous logged in.

Some implementations do require a password, a common password to use is “guest”. If not, the password is usually given in the response after we typed in “anonymous” like:
Use welcome as password.

If we see the prompt becomes
ftp>
that means we have successfully logged in to the FTP server (or the printer in our case).
Here comes the meat: we are to transfer test.pdf file directly to the printer. In the ftp prompt, type:
ftp> put test.pdf

We should see responses like:
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII data connection.
226 Transfer complete. 9375 bytes sent.

The printer then prints out our pdf file.
To exit the ftp program, type “bye” at the ftp prompt.

And this concludes our little experiment on testing FTP printers.

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What are FTP Printers?

2009-09-18T19:17:00.007-04:00

What is FTP?

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, which is one of the standard protocols used on the internet. FTP is specifically for transferring files from one machine to another over the internet originally, now via any network.

Some printer vendors (like HP and Lexmark) manufacture FTP printers. These printers have a little built-in FTP engine that accepts PDF (Portable Document Format) file as print jobs and prints them.

The printers will also have a built-in pdf engine to render print jobs to actual physical paper output. Thus individual computers do not need to have the printer driver for that particular model installed in order to print properly.

Based on a similar principle, UniPrint’s universal printer driver basically converts (through some third-party PDF engine) the output of a document’s printing function to a pdf file and sends it to the printer for rendering. The 3rd-party pdf engine UniPrint driver uses is Amyuni (for all versions of Uniprint's core products) and Foxit (for the newer versions of UniPrint's core products).

How do you know that a printer is an FTP printer? Or a better question, how do you know that an FTP printer is actually working?

Essentially, the question is: How to test FTP printers? Read on.

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Startup Programs

2009-09-11T19:17:00.004-04:00

Ever wonder how to do it if you want a certain program to run automatically whenever a machine boots up, or whenever a user logs in? The trick is in the registry.

When windows starts up, it will run all programs it finds in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

Let’s do a simple experiment. Open up the registry by typing regedit into the open box (Start -> Run). Navigate to the above key. Click on the Run key on the left pane, then right-click on empty space on the right pane. Choose New -> String Value, and give it a name like test.

A new key named test has been created, but it has no value. Double-click on this newly created key test, and enter notepad.exe in the Value data box. Click OK, and close regedit.

Restart windows. After windows is restarted, login to any account, and you’ll see notepad opens up already.

If you want a particular program (or group of programs) to be run every time whenever a particular user logs in, you can put a shortcut to this program (or these programs) in this folder C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\. Replace [username] with the actual username. You can navigate to this folder through windows explorer.

This is useful if, for example, a user in the accounting department always runs the accounting program acct.exe whenever he/she logs in. You can put in this user’s Startup folder a shortcut pointing to this acct.exe. Make sure that this user has all privileges, permissions, credentials to run this program.

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A Brief History of UniPrint

2009-09-04T19:17:00.012-04:00

UniPrint started out in 1999 and has been around for 10 years (as of this year, 2009) and gone through several stages.

When it first started, UniPrint was just a product name of Qnetix, a division of Charon Systems, a Toronto, Canada-based system integrator specializing in Citrix products, and later Microsoft Terminal Services products.

Then, Charon Systems was bought by FutureLinks, a California-based company. So UniPrint was under FutureLinks.

Next, FutureLinks went bankrupt, and owners of Charon Systems bought it back and reverted it back to Charon Systems.

Then next, Bell Canada bought Charon Systems. In April 2005, Bell Canada bought another company Nexxlink Technologies, and integrated the two companies into a new Bell entity: Bell Business Solutions (BBS). Then next BBS disintegrated the two companies into a few divisions, along with some other small companies that BBS bought. UniPrint became a division under Bell Business Solutions.

BBS wanted to expand its business in Europe, and set up a UK-based company called Ingenica. But because business in Europe did not pick up as hoped, the Ingenica operation was shut down. Yet the name Ingenica still lived on until 2008.

In 2008, Bell Canada sold BBS to a Montreal, Canada-based IT company GFI Business Solutions, a subsidiary of a French company GFI. And UniPrint now is a division under GFI Business Solutions.

You may have wondered seeing different names on the EULA (End-User License Agreement) -- if you ever read them -- on different versions of UniPrint products. And now you know where those names come from.

Also, you’ll see in the license of UniPrint version 5 and earlier is stored in the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Charon.

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UniPrint Host Edition licensing

2009-08-28T19:17:00.002-04:00

UniPrint Host Edition enables user to print from host systems (such as Sun’s Solaris, IBM’s AS/400, Linux, etc.) to their Windows desktop machines.

UniPrint Host Edition uses a totally different licensing model from the core UniPrint SbC products or UniPrint VDI Edition. UNiPrint Host Edition uses per usage licensing, and the usage in the Host Edtition is number of pages printed.

You will need the following information to generate a UniPrint Host Edition license file:

The machine name on which UniPrint Host Server is be installed. (You need to install the Host Edition first prior to requesting a Host Edition license.)
The IP address of the machine above.
A serial number that you obtained from your supplier (a reseller, a distributor, or the vendor).
Install Code: This information is available only after you installed the software. So, you need to install the software first, and record the install code from the UniPrint management console.
The number of pages you are licensed to print.

As of writing, the initial value for the number of pages in a Host Edition license is 60,000 pages, and you can order additional bundles in increments of 10,000 pages.

All these values will be reset at the beginning of the calendar year. For example, let’s say you have a 60,000-page license and you used up 56,000 pages by December 31 of the year. Comes January 1 of next year, and you’ll get your full 60,000 pages back for the entire year. However, you cannot carry the remaining 4,000 pages into next year so that you can have 64,000 pages in your reserve.

You can set it up in the Host Edition management console so that you’ll receive notifications through emails when you approach within a certain percentages (e.g., 10%, 5%) of the limit of your license.

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UniPrint VDI Edition licensing

2009-08-21T19:17:00.002-04:00

UniPrint VDI Edition is to be installed on a desktop running Microsoft desktop Windows, i.e., XP or Vista.

The licensing model of UniPrint VDI Edition is different from the UniPrint SbC products. The VDI Edition uses a per-server and per-concurrent-users model.

You will need a machine to act as a UniPrint License Server, which is usually a UniPrint Spool Server.

Unlike the licensing of core UniPrint SbC products, you don’t need the following information:

Environment: RDP only or ICA (ICA license includes RDP, so RDP can run on ICA license).
Platform: 32-bit support or 64-bit support (64-bit license includes 32-bit support, so 32-bit platform can run on 64-bit license).

You will need the following information to generate a license file:

The machine name on which UniPrint Spool Server is/will be installed.
The IP address of the machine above.
A serial number that you obtained from your supplier (a reseller, a distributor, or the vendor).
The number of servers.
The number of concurrent users.

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How to find out machine name and IP address?

2009-08-14T19:17:00.002-04:00

As you need the machine name and IP address in order to request a valid license, you need to know how to find out the information. There are several ways to find out the name and the IP address of your machine.

The easiest way is from a command window. To open a command window, click Start -> Run, then in the Open box, type cmd, and click OK. In the command window, type hostname to see the name of your machine, and type ipconfig to see the IP address of your machine.

Click here to see a larger image.

You can also find out the machine name by right-clicking My Computer (on the desktop or on the Start menu), and then choose Properties, then click on the Computer Name tab.

Click here to see a larger image.

If you cannot see My Computer on your desktop, right-click on the blank area of the desktop, click Properties, then click the Desktop tab, then click the Customize Desktop button. Click OK to exit.

If you cannot see My Computer on your Start menu, right-click the Start button, click Properties, click the Start Menu tab, click the Customize button. Another dialog window shows. On this window, click the Advanced tab. In the middle part about Start menu items, scroll down to find My Computer, then choose either Display as a link, or Display as a menu. Click OK to exit.

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SbC products licensing

2009-08-07T19:17:00.010-04:00

UniPrint’s core products seamlessly support printing in Server-based Computing (SbC) environments. All these products are to be installed on a server platform such as Microsoft’s Servers 2000, 2003 and 2008, or Citrix Metaframe Server and Presentation Server.

These core products include 32-bit products:

UniPrint Server
UniPrint Server Gateway Edition
UniPrint Terminal Server Edition
UniPrint Terminal Server Gateway Edition

All these core products have their 64-bit counterparts, and the product name is suffixed by “x64” to the corresponding product:

UniPrint Server x64
UniPrint Server Gateway Edition x64
UniPrint Terminal Server Edition x64
UniPrint Terminal Server Gateway Edition x64

Products with names that have “Terminal Server” works only in Microsoft’s Terminal Services environments, i.e., with the RDP protocol. Products without such in their names also work in Microsoft’s Terminal Services environments, i.e., with the RDP protocol, and in addition, they also work in Citrix environments with the ICA protocol.

The following information is required to generate a license file:

The machine name on which UniPrint Server is/will be installed.
The IP address of the machine above.
Environment: RDP only or ICA (ICA license includes RDP, so RDP can run on ICA license).
Platform: 32-bit support or 64-bit support (64-bit license includes 32-bit support, so 32-bit platform can run on 64-bit license).
A serial number that you obtained from your supplier (a reseller, a distributor, or the vendor).

From the above information, you’ll know that when you request a license, you need to have the machine name and the IP address ready, because the license is tied to those two pieces of information.

The licensing model for UniPrint’s core products (i.e., the SbC products) is per server, not per user (or per concurrent users). In other words, each UniPrint server will require its own valid license. Once a UniPrint server has its own valid license, there is no limitation from the licensing perspective as to how many users can connect to the UniPrint server.

This model of licensing is applicable to UniPrint’s SbC products (both Gateway and non-Gateway versions) up the latest release version 6.1.5 (as of writing).

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UniPrint license

2009-07-31T19:17:00.002-04:00

All UniPrint products are available for free download. When you download any of these products, they are fully functional except that there is a banner / watermark printed diagonally across the printout. (The only exception is UniPrint client software, which is a complementary product to the core products.)

You can request a temporary license that expires in a predetermined date, usually within 30 or 60 days. With the temporary license, you can evaluate the UniPrint product of your interest, and it behaves exactly the same as the fully licensed version. When you are ready to order, you need to call a reseller or a distributor to get a license key.

The steps in applying a temporary license for evaluation is the same as applying a regular license. You will receive in email, as attachment, a license key in the form of a text file with file extension .txt. You will have to rename the extension to a .reg registry file. Some email server or client programs are very vigilant about receiving .reg file as attachments that they may strip off the attachment altogether. That is why the license key file will be sent as plain text file, and you’ll have to rename it back to .reg file.

You need to save the renamed .reg file onto the machine where UniPrint Server is installed. Then you just need to double-click the file to put the license in place.

This applies to the Server-based Computing (SbC) core products up to and including version 6.1.5. Licensing for other products will be discussed in another article.

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Why do you need to reboot after installing UniPrint Server?

2009-07-24T19:17:00.003-04:00

After you install UniPrint Server, you need to reboot the system in order for it to take effect. But you don’t need to restart the system with Spool Server or Print Server. Why?

When you connect to the UniPrint Server through a remote session, for example, through Microsoft Terminal Services (MS TS) RDP or Citrix ICA connections, the UniPrint program LogScript (LogScrpt.exe) has to be launched to establish virtual channel.

When MS TS starts, it automatically launches all programs listed in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd\StartupPrograms

The regkey StartupPrograms contains startup programs separated by commas. There should be at least one program there, and it’s rdpclip. After installing UniPrint Server, it should also contain LogScrpt.

The program rdpclip.exe is a Microsoft program used by TS. This program resides in %windir%\System32 (usually it’s C:\WINDOWS\System32), so it should not be a problem for Windows to find this program.

On the other hand, the LogScript program (LogScrpt.exe) resides usually in C:\Program Files\UniPrint Suite\Common Files. But how does Windows know where to find it?

One of the ways that Windows finds a program is to look at the environment variable PATH in the system table, which contains a list of paths for finding programs separated by semi-colons. A typical PATH, after installing UniPrint Server, may look like this:
C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\UniPrint Suite\Common Files

Since PATH is a system level environment variable, its content is set only at system startup. Any changes to its content after system startup won’t take effect. For the changes to take effect, one has to simply reboot the machine.

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UniPrint products overview

2009-07-17T19:17:00.003-04:00

With the current buzzword of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), or in the more arcane IT vocabulary of Server-based Computing (SbC), you won't miss this keyword: UniPrint. Why? Simply because they are a key player.

Their products enhance VDI printing and SbC printing in Citrix as well as Microsoft terminal Server platforms. Their products are indispensable in helping system administrators manage and solve printing problems.

The following are their product offerings:

UniPrint Server – A core product of UniPrint for fat-client printing. A special version, UniPrint Terminal Server Edition, works specifically in the Microsoft Terminal Server platform, but not in the Citrix platform.

UniPrint Gateway Edition – The core product with extended capability for thin-client printing. There is also a special version, UniPrint Gateway Terminal Server Edition, that works specifically in the Microsoft Terminal Server platform, but not in the Citrix platform.

UniPrint VDI Edition – This product tailors specifically for printing in a Virtual Desktop Infrasturcture (VDI) environment such as that offered by VMware.

UniPrint Host Edition – This product enables flexible printing from non-Windows host systems (e.g., mainframes and legacy systems as well as Unix boxes) to Windows desktops.

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INDEX

2009-07-17T07:17:00.019-04:00

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