How do I set up capture.exe forms in NW6?

[jwgrahamjr]

If you read the subject you are probably wondering why I am still using capture.exe in Netware 6.

Here is the situation. I recently migrated a NW3.12 server to NW6 SP2. The company I am doing work for uses a DOS based system which has embedded CAPTURE commands in the DOS programs. Therefore, I am still using queue based printing until we can upgrade the software and use pure IP with NDPS and get rid of the old queues. (That isn't happening for a while)

On the NW3.12 server, I used PRINTDEF to define numerous specialized printer forms that we use. The embedded CAPTURE commands use these user-defined forms through command line options to CAPTURE.EXE...such as this:
CAPTURE F=2 C=1 NT NB Q=P0
This capture command would use form #2 as defined by PRINTDEF, set copies=1, use the P0 print queue, etc.

This all worked fine on the 3.12 server ... the program output would be captured, sent to the queue and the print server would request that the operator mount the appropriate form if necessary. When these CAPTURE commands are called on the NW6 server I get an error stating that the form could not be found in the forms database.

I tried copying over the old forms database (PRINTDEF.DAT, IBM$OVL.DAT) from the 3.12 server and copied PRINTDEF over to SYSUBLIC. I ran printdef and it is able to see all of the forms I previously defined as well as the printers. The problem is, CAPTURE.EXE does not see/recognize the forms database.

Note that I am using the CAPTURE.EXE that shipped with NW6 in the SYSUBLIC area.

How can I set up a new forms database that CAPTURE will recognize in NW6?
Is there some utility I can use to set up the forms again?

Thanks...

 

[paxo1]

When I have to use capture under nw6, I have to specify the complete context of the printer object or q, eg #capture q=.q_name.org_unit.org l=1 nb nff etc, otherwise I get capture errors.

endless hours of fun without the dots.....

 

[jwgrahamjr]

Thanks, your suggestion worked...actually I had two problems.
I had used NWADMIN32 to set up forms but they weren't being recognized by capture.
It turns out that I must have migrated the old capture.exe from my NW3.12 server to a search drive...because I was using the wrong version of capture.

Now that I am using the proper capture.exe that shipped with NW6 (although it is officially unsupported by Novell), I don't get those forms errors...but I did get other strange and unrelated errors until I specified the complete context of the queue as you suggested.

- John

 

[chulanina]

Arrgh, and I thought I had printing nightmares. You can easily set up queues in NDPS. Just set them up like you normally would. After you set up the printer agent you can see an option for spooling configuration. Add your queue here.

What exactly did you do with Printdef? If I know then I can probably tell you what you need to do. Also, if you want to direct to different LPT ports you can download a freeeware program that redirects the printer agents to a port. The name of the program is DOSprint from

http://www.pcounter.com.

It works great with XP.