Recently John McCann placed a file called PC-FIX.TXT on NetWare
that explained how to modify Capture and Nprint to access a
"global" print job configuration file.  Although this is a good
first step, it seemed to me that there should be a way for a
Supervisor to easily create the global file also.  My solution
requires modification of PRINTCON.EXE, CAPTURE.EXE and
NPRINT.EXE.  By keeping two versions of these utilities, users
can access either the global file or their own personal files.

Copy PRINTCON.EXE to PPRTCON.EXE (for Personal PrintCon)
Copy CAPTURE.EXE to PCAPTURE.EXE (for Personal Capture)
Copy NPRINT.EXE to PNPRINT.EXE (for Personal NPrint)

Since I never learned to use DEBUG, I use WordPerfect's P-Edit,
which comes with WordPerfect Library and WordPerfect Office. 
With P-Edit, editing a binary file is similar to editing a text
file with WordPerfect.

To edit a binary file with P-Edit, you would type:

      PE/B filename.ext <Enter>

The /B tells P-Edit to ignore ^Zs, etc.  The filename.ext will be
PRINTCON.EXE, CAPTURE.EXE, and NPRINT.EXE (you have already
copied them to new file names so that you can restore them if
necessary).  You can also retrieve the file after entering P-Edit
just like you would with WordPerfect.

IMPORTANT: Put P-Edit in typeover mode by hitting the <Ins> key
if necessary.

Using the FIND key (<F2>), find the word "mail".  You will find
one or more text strings such as "sys:mail\%lx\%s^@printcon.dat". 
Type over each similar string found with:

      sys:public\printcon.dat

Type over whatever remains of the old string with "^@"
(<Ctrl><@>), the "null" character.  PrintCon has strings in both
uppercase and lower case.  I don't know if that is important, so
I used the same case as the original.

I would suggest moving your new version of PRINTCON.EXE to the
SYS:SYSTEM directory.

The new versions of these utilities will access a common
PRINTCON.DAT file in the SYS:PUBLIC directory.  

I haven't really tested this well, especially in a multi-server
environment, but it all seems to work so far.  It would be nice
to remove the "Supervisor - Copy Print Job Configurations" option
from the menu, but I am not enough of a programmer to even begin
to understand how to do that.

Good Luck,



Patrick H. Corrigan.


PS:  My new book, "Building Local Area Networks with Novell's
NetWare (with co-author Aisling Guy) should be on bookstore
shelves by the end of June.  Buy it! We need the money.