Okay, this has never been an issue before because it was only cosmetic, but after upgrading to WinXP Pro it's a real problem. I can print to my Samba printers just fine, but they come up with "Access denied, unable to connect" errors in the titlebar. The /var/spool/samba directory is chmod'ed 777 and they are marked public and available for printing. Again, they print just fine, but I need to get rid of the error or else the easy to read "Location" area in XP doesn't show up.

I don't understand.

When you print, does the printer print what you send to it.

Yes, it prints fine.

After upgrading from Win98 to XP Pro we found out that XP does not allow you to change the name of your network printers. Obviously for the average user "Downstairs LaserJet" is easier to understand than "hp5000n on Archive". In order to get a legible name for the printers you have to use the "Location" field, however when you have a perceived printer error like this, it does not display the "Location" field to tell everyone what printer it is. This is why now I need to get rid of the error.

Actual printing has never been an issue.

Oh... Well...
This is a Windows problem.
Not a Linux question

One thing that I learn over the years working with Windows is that you are always better off install Windows from scratch.
Something always goes wrong when you upgrade.

I don't really work with the dark side anymore.
My only suggestion is to re-install the printer drivers.

ARRGG! That is the same answer I get to every SAMBA question. Not too helpful really and I doubt it is a Windows issue.

I'm the IT director for an engineering consulting firm. We have been experimenting with Linux for about a year now, but getting support seems to be the biggest hang-up. On top of that we requires AutoCAD. Find me a REAL professional CADD program for Linux and a way to get useful support and I'll consider changing. Until then,...Bills getting my businesses dollar no matter how much I hate it.

BTW, it was a fresh install of XP.

If you are able to see the printer share on XP, connect to it, and successfully print. Then Samba is not to blame.

You could try adding to the printer share a comment = option.

If that doesn't solve the problem, keep this thread open. Maybe one of the Guru's or Moderators will answer you.

Also, O'Reilly & Associates have very good books on Samba and other Linux related software, programming and servers.
http://www.oreilly.com/

There was another post with the same question earlier.

The solution is to add the following to the appropriate [printer] section(s):

use client driver = yes

This allows windows to see the unix print queue (I don't know what the association is between the client driver and samba, but it works). I first saw this in the O'Rielly Samba book.

Don

So it tells you it fails, but it actually succeeds? I've seen that in connection with print spoolers. Is there some way to tell your computer to wait a little longer before giving up? If nothing else maybe try not using the spooler, or making it a little bigger/smaller.

Tony

Well, oddly, it worked. I noticed the previous posts here that said to try that so I did. It wouldn't work all time. Every few minutes, the status would change back. This morning it seems that all is well. I'll keep you guys posted.