Dear Experts,
Will this setup work at all? Extremely hard to find support on this, as printer driver manufacturer won't support Windows sharing, and Microsoft won't support Windows XP. Here is the setup:
We have an application that resides on Windows Server 2008 R2, which has a Print Server role (among others) and sends print jobs to printers that are installed in print queue (printers that you see when you go to "Administrative Tools > Print Management> Print Servers"). Practically all of the printers in there are printers that have ethernet ports and plugged into RJ-45 ethernet cables. Now, recently, they bought new label printers Zebra FX420t, with modification that does not have ethernet port
built in. It only has USB and serial ports. Our thinking naturally was this: why don't we plug the printer via USB to the local workstation (Windows XP) and then share it, and then install the printer on the print server (that is on Windows 2008 R2 server
above) and it will work that way.
Basically GX420t -USB-> Windows XP workstation -LAN-> Windows Server 2008 R2.
While there was no error (except for warning "selected port does not support bidirectional communication needed by the driver. If you install the driver on this port, you will not be able to use its full functionality.") during the install of the
printer, and it showed status of the printer as "ready", when I tried printing a test page from the server, it never went through on the Windows XP workstation, nor attached printer. It does however print well from the Windows XP machine.
I tried searching google but could not find anything on this topic.
Really need some insight on this. Will such setup work at all? Is it supported by the operating system? Much appreciate your help on this.