XP Looses Printers Over Network

[kermitderby]

We have a couple of Win98se PC's with HP5000's installed connected by the parallel port. We also have a Ricoh printer connected directly to the network (uses printer server). The printers are set up to be shared. The printers are visible over the network and can be installed successfully to all XP machines. Printing has been fine up until recently. The XP machines loose connection to the printers returning a 'cannot find printer' message to the user even though if you use explorer you can see the printer. If the user logs off then back on again the issue is resolved and the user can print until the next time it happens (can be a day or a week later!) whats going on!!! Help!!! is it a rights issue? network delay? Thanks

 

[tviman]

Can you describe your network architecture? At first glance, it sounds as if the Win98 machines are being rebooted sometime during the day and the connection can't be restored to them until the other machines reboot - or disconnect from those drives and reconnect again. But without knowing the network layout, it's just a guess.

There's always a better way. The fun is trying to find it!

 

[kermitderby]

Thanks for the reply. Network is Cat5e 10baseT using combination of switch and hubs. Server is MS Windows 2000 SBS. Combination of XP and 98 client machines. The item you suggested sounds likely though as if i ask the xp user to log off and back on its fine. Is this a common problem then? can it be solved any other way? i presume the problem disappears if all machines were upgraded to xp?