Document version 1.00 This file contains information about AXIS Print System version 1.00. AXIS Print System ================= The AXIS Print System is a "dial tone auto install" print and installation software, which enhances the standard Windows functionality of discovering and auto-installation of printers in your Windows environment. It supports the W95/98/NT/Windows 2000 platforms running TCP/IP. Both end users and system administrators will benefit from its features. It is suitable for both small workgroups and larger server based networks. AXIS Print System provides you with following facilities: * Zero effort installation of printers on Windows platforms. Automatic device discovering, creation of printer object, installation and sharing of new connected printers. * If no automatic method of self-configuring, like IP address setting with i.e. BOOTP or DHCP is used, automatic search for un-configured and newly connected print servers to the network is supported. Subsequent step of manually setting of the IP address is easily done. * Transparent replication of printer drivers in Windows NT/2000. Automatic search and installation of available printer drivers on the network corresponding to the attached printer. Enables dynamic adoption to changing networks. * Support for printer service location such as duplex, ppm, finisher etc. functions normally required by the printing user. * Uses standard bi-directional TCP/IP print protocol and builds upon standards like SLPv2, SNMP * Provides both peer-to-peer and client server printing, which makes it ideal for both small and big networks. Release Description AXIS Print System -------------------------------------- The AXIS Print System consists of different program modules. AXIS Print System version 1.00 ============================== Only print servers running software version 6.00 or later having a connected printer will be presented in the "Available Network Printer" list. This is a requirement for installation. To automatically install a printer during installation (one step installation), following 4 conditions must be met: 1) Printer driver must be in the list of drivers provided by Windows. Otherwise the location of the printer drivers must be given (e.g. printer diskettes/CD-ROM or another network location) 2) The printer driver must be available either on the computer (W95/98/NT/W2000) or on the network (NT/W2000). Otherwise the Windows CD-ROM or an location where the CD-ROM is must be provided. 3) Printer model name must correspond exactly to the printer driver name. E.g. The printer model "Xerox DocuPrintN24/N32/N40" having a printer driver named "Xerox DocuPrintN24/N32/N40 PS" doesn't match and the driver must be manually selected. 4) NT/W2000 only: In order to copy a printer driver from another computer over the network, the print$ library must be a shared resource (default setting) on the computer providing the driver. Installed printers will, by default, use RAW TCP as print protocol and only the printers installed by AXIS Print System will show printer status. To locate uninstalled printers, AXIS Print Monitor uses the SLPv2 protocol. In order to find printers across routers, make sure that SLP multicasts can propagate through routers. SLPv2 multicast address is 239.255.255.253. If no forwarding of multicasts is enabled and the IP address of the print server is known, the printer can still be installed manually using the AXIS Print Monitor. Step-by-step instructions is found in the help file. You can find the help file where the AXIS Print System is installed. AXIS Print Monitor version 3.00 =============================== The present AXIS Print Monitor on your computer will be exchanged and will in addition to NetBIOS and LPR/LPD also support printing via RAW TCP. This is the protocol used when a printer is created via AXIS Print System. If you would like to install printers to use the NetBIOS or LPR protocol, please follow the installation instructions in the AXIS Print Monitor help file. You can find the help file where the AXIS Print System is installed. AXIS IP Installer version 1.51 ============================== AXIS Print System uses a special version of the stand-alone AXIS IP Installer. This version uses only DHCP to listen for and to set the IP address. Therefore, if disabling DHCP in the print server it will not appear. Additionally, in the presence of a DHCP server there is no need to use AXIS IP Installer as the IP address then is automatically assigned. Log-File -------- In the same directory as AXIS Print System is installed into, there is a log file registering events during the use of the program. This information can be very useful when talking to support. Information ----------- When upgrading the print server software, you will only lose all settings if the new software contains new parameters (or new types of old ones). See the print server release documentation for more information. Hardware Requirements --------------------- AXIS Print System requires a PC with a 386 or higher processor and at least 8MB of RAM. Software Requirements --------------------- AXIS Print System can be used with Windows 95/98, Windows NT and Windows 2000. The network support requirement is: * Enabled TCP/IP support Software limitations -------------------- 1. Paper out message will not be reported to the client if the printer goes out of paper and the remaining of the print job is less than 13 Kbytes. This depends on that the print server keep the data in it's internal buffer. Remaining data will be printed if when new paper is filled into the printer. The same behavior will be seen if the print job is smaller than 13Kbytes. 2. When setting a specific date for scanning after printer drivers, it can take a couple of minutes after the specified time until the scanning starts. This depends on that the polling of this event is done every 5 minutes. 3. Windows NT/2000. If other Print Providers than the one provided by Microsoft is installed on a computer, the scanning for printer drivers over the network could fail due to lack of functionality in the other Print Providers. This could be the case if e.g. a NetWare client is installed. 4. Accessing a print server from AXIS Print System within 30 seconds after a printer is connected could result in a temporary hanging of the print server. Please wait approximately 30 seconds and the problem is avoided. This behavior can be seen also if accessing the print servers web pages. 5. Problems with Windows 2000 beta 3. Installing printers and copying drivers over the network sometimes fails. Axis will continuously follow the releases of the new W2000 beta versions. 6. Printing several print jobs simultaneously, where at least one print job is using the LPR protocol in combination with some printer drivers, can cause all the print jobs to hang until the LPR print job is either finished or deleted. 7. Sharing of printers in Windows NT can be done using the "Custom" installation wizard. This is not possible in W95/98. Instead the standard Windows procedure by selecting sharing in the printer object should be used. 8. Installation of printers having the driver in a setup.exe file is not supported by AXIS Print System. E.g. Epson and Fujitsu provide such files for some of their printers. You have to manually run the setup file first and then install the printer as normal with AXIS Print System. More Information ================ If you need more information about AXIS Print System, or any of the Axis Network Print Servers, please visit the Axis WWW Home Page at http://www.axis.com/. You will be able to download on-line manuals and the latest versions of the software utilities.