Re: Lexmark Z35 in an XPSP2 home network using WinME clients

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From: Alan Morris\(MSFT\) (alanmo_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 01/11/05 

Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:24:07 -0800

Not sure who needs to fix it but Lexmark understands it's a DCOM issue.

It's an issue with the DCOM communication interface. I gave the Lexmark
instructions to another user and it did not help them. Let me know how this
works for you and I will inform the Lexmark driver developers.

>From Lexmark:
Below is an excerpt from our development staff that was sent to the TAM when
we first noticed the problem:

"Our current printing solution uses a DCOM application
to provide client applications with print path, printer status and
printer configuration. Our current implementation also supports remote
(machine) peer-to-peer printing with printer status.

When we apply Service Pack 2 to a Windows XP machine, peer-to-peer
printing no longer functions correctly. We notice that our DCOM
application (which runs as a service) gets launched, but the remote
client gets an 'access denied' error (5) when it tries to use the
interface. We did some investigation with DCOMCNFG and noticed that we
were able to print when the machine-wide settings were modified as
follows:

DCOMCNFG- > 'Configure my Computer' button -> COM Security -> 'Access
Permissions' Edit Limits -> 'Remote Access' for Everyone=checked.

Prior to the change, the allow and deny settings for Remote Access were
blank, which we understood to mean that the application's settings were
to be used. This leads us to our question: From a DCOM point of view,
what is the exact meaning of the new 'Security Limits' part of DCOMCNFG
and what does it mean if a particular field is blank (that is, neither
Allow or Deny is checked)?

Some background information may be useful. Our component specifies
'Connect' and 'Identify' as it's communication property at runtime with
CoInitializeSecurity(). It specifies launch and access permission via
the Registry under HKCR\AppId\{application guid}."

This gives a basic understanding of why Lexmark uses DCOM and what we try to
do in the Peer to Peer configuration. We basicallly use the DCOM
application for our bidirectional communications and we try to perform the
communications via a Peer to Peer connected printer.

As far as when it broke, we first noticed the problem in RC1 of the service
pack. We started the escalation then, but noticed it was fixed in RC2. By
fixed, we basically mean the defaults for these settings were changed. When
the RTM came out, the default settings for the COM Security were set back to
the way they were in RC1.

We have worked on a method that will allow us to programatically change
these settings, but we would need to prompt the user to let them know we are
trying to make this change and would like to steer away from this if at all
possible. I was waiting to get this out to make sure it was possible for us
to make this change.

End Lexmark 

-- 
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];kbhowto
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"Anton" <Anton@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A136CB09-0789-494C-80B1-46440EA5FB34@microsoft.com...
> Appreciate your effort to help solve this both with Lexmark and Microsoft.
> I'm however puzzled as the only change to my environment was XPSP2. Also I
> noticed an earlier reference to a beta of the servicepack which did not
> interfere with this kind of home network printing setup. May be Microsoft
is
> in a better position to solve it?
>
> "Alan Morris(MSFT)" wrote:
>
> > Contact Lexmark on this.  I'll forward this to the Lexmark test team at
> > Microsoft.  They were working on this but the solution they came up with
> > never worked.
> >
> > -- 
> > Alan Morris
> > Windows Printing Team
> > Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
> > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];kbhowto
> >
> > This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
> >
> > "Anton" <Anton@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:BBF9B2A5-5B1A-45B8-9B50-20371F0CEAFB@microsoft.com...
> > > I've a strange printer driver behavior which I so far have not been
able
> > to
> > > resolve. My printer is a Lexmark Z35 usb connected to a WinXpHome
system.
> > My
> > > other network clients are WinMe systems. All Windows are Norwegian
> > language
> > > versions. I use a home network router. Prior to XPSP2 network printing
was
> > > performing fine, however once I  applied the XPSP2 then client drivers
> > could
> > > not communicate with the remote printer. As I've got Northon Internet
> > > Security on all systems, I've switched off the Microsoft Security
Center
> > > firewall. Local printing on XP remains fine. If I remove the XPSP2 all
is
> > > back to previous state with the client network printing working fine.
Any
> > > idea where to look to solve this will be very much apprechiated.
> >
> >
> >
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