Shared Printer requires a password on 98 machines over a 2003 Network

[Lloyd Lambright]

I upgraded my NT network to server 2003 about 4 months ago and have had a problem with the 98 client machines being able to sucessfully share a printer to another 98 machine. I am at a school so we have about 220, 98 machines and many of them have shared printers. When a 98 machine tries to connect to the shared printer it asks for a password, but no matter what password you enter it will not let the remote computer connect to the printer. All the printers worked just fine with the NT network we had. On many of the 98 machines it asks for the password for the printer at startup as well. I have tried reinstalling the print drivers and have changed all the shares to allow anyone to print to the printer. Nothing seems to work.

[Phil.Howell]

To be tried at your own risk...
On one of the Win 98 clients, try renaming password (.pwl) files in c:\Windows and reboot.
Phil

[Lloyd Lambright]

I tried deleteing the .pwl files and the profiles form both computers but there was no change in asking for the password. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Ananthak23]

Try setting the same password for both the client and print server.

cheers,
Anantha

[Antoniov.]

Lloyd,
I can't understand if shared printer is connected to win2k3 server or on win98.
If your printer is connected to win2k3 server, I guess you don't share printer resource for all users. Win2k3 is more restrictive of nt about sharing resurse. Also don't forget win2k3 doesn't use ndis/netbeui/netbios protocol, so if you don't add tcp/ip on win98 client, you cannot access to server.
Can you access to other shared resourse on win2k3?

Antonio Vigliotti

[Lloyd Lambright]

The printer is connected to another 98 machine not the server. I use static TCP/IP addresses on all my computers. As far using the same password on both machines I do not enter the password on the machine, since this is on a Win2k3 network, the users log on the network using the servers. I can access other resources from the client machines such as network drives. I have also set the printers on the Win98 machines to share to the world to eliminate the need for a password.

[Antoniov.]

LLoyd,
did you changed something on win98 machines? Windows 2k3 requires crypted password while windows 9x use cleared password. I remember some trouble like your in update from nt to win2k or win2k3.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Lloyd Lambright]

I did not change anyting on the 98 machines. I know that when the user logs on, the 98 machines use a different logon procedure for the W2K3 network vurses the NT network. I am sure this is the reason the printers can not have a password on them for certain users, but since I have shared the printers to the World I do not understand why the printer is still asking for a password. I tried redoing a 98 machine from reformat the HD and the machine still asked for a password form the other computer when I added the printer and shared it. I sort of think this is an HP problem and not really a Microsoft problem.

[Ananthak23]

Is win98 system which shares the printer a member of a domain? Try installing Active directory client on Windows 98 system. btw how are you selecting the users to give the permissions? Is it a domain account or a local account?

-Anantha

[Antoniov.]

Lloyd,
Read carefully this article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;260142

Also follow link is not exactly your trouble but it can help you how windows use shared printers
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257709
In this article you can read shared policy with win xp
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;870903
This is a problem like yours:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;312055
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;121074

HTH
Antonio Vigliotti