Simple problem but with a slightly indirect solution. The LAN consisted of mixture of 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista with the printer, an Epson CX6400 on the 32 bit Vista machine.
It was identified that there were Vista drivers (32 and 64 bit) for the CX6400 but these were only available via Windows Update. The difficulty was getting the printer shared with the correct driver on the the 64 bit machine. The printer drivers are not available to download as seperate .inf installation.
With the printer switched on the 32 bit machine found it and gave the option to locate and install the driver via Windows Update. This worked fine. On the LAN the 64 bit machine could see the printer and recognised it needed a driver and offered to download it from the 32 bit machine - but of course it was not there! Windows update had only installed the 32 driver and not the ones for other OS's. The option to make these avaaible was ticked in the printer setup to allow other OS drivers to be stored but this can be only set after the single driver has been installed via windows update.
As Vista 64 but could not find the driver on the 32 bit Vista machine it offered the "Have Disk" option of supplying an .inf file, which of course was not available. It did not go to the internet and try with windows update to get the correct Vista driver.
The only solution was to physically attach the CX6400 to the Vista 64 bit machine, let windows update install the 64 but driver and then return the printer to the 32 bit machine. This time when adding a shared printer it had the correct driver installed and all was OK. The "local" CX6400 that was no longer present and could then be deleted after the other printer was shared.
You would have expected windows update to check the Internet what was available not just offer a disk.
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Friday, 20 March 2009
Kaspersky Internet Security 2009
Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) 2009 was installed on two Dells both running Vista and initially both set up connected via Ethernet cabled to Linksys ADSL / Wireless- Router. the rest of local LAN was an XP and Vista machine. The default settings were used and all worked well each machine could see shares and other machines etc. After set up one machine wa moved to another room and connected via 802.11G Linksys wireless USB connector and Vista to the secured local network.
Internet access via wireless connection and ADSL Router was OK. However it was impossible to get it to see the other computers on the local LAN. All the Vista settings and security sharing were checeked. Eventually by disabling KIS firewall the problem was traced to KIS firewall on the wireless connected machine.
By default either for wireless networks in general or because it had initially been set up as wired and then made a wireless connection, the wireless connection was classed as "public" network and tight security applied to it. This had to be changed deep in the settings from Public to Local. TO do this use KIS 2009>System Security>Firewall>Settings>Network and then edit the relevant network listed.
Changing the wireless connection from public to local in KIS 2009 then meant that all the machines could see each other. It would have been much more helpful if when KIS detected a new network that it gave you the option to decide if this was local or public or at least made it more obvious.
Internet access via wireless connection and ADSL Router was OK. However it was impossible to get it to see the other computers on the local LAN. All the Vista settings and security sharing were checeked. Eventually by disabling KIS firewall the problem was traced to KIS firewall on the wireless connected machine.
By default either for wireless networks in general or because it had initially been set up as wired and then made a wireless connection, the wireless connection was classed as "public" network and tight security applied to it. This had to be changed deep in the settings from Public to Local. TO do this use KIS 2009>System Security>Firewall>Settings>Network and then edit the relevant network listed.
Changing the wireless connection from public to local in KIS 2009 then meant that all the machines could see each other. It would have been much more helpful if when KIS detected a new network that it gave you the option to decide if this was local or public or at least made it more obvious.
Graphic card connectors
Installing 2 new Dells ( a Core i7 and E8400) both with ATI HD 3650 cards. The cards come with 3 connectors a DVI, a DisplayPort (unexpected) and a HDMI. A few points
- Only two of the three connectors can be used at any one time (any of the two),hence the card can drive only two monitors at once. Plug three in and ATI catylst centre knows about then an gives the option of dragging the unused one to replace an existing one.
- DisplayPort adaptors are available - but the best ones are with a short lead (about 15cm) otherwsie the connector is quite long and heave on the card.
- When using a DVI to VGA connectors it does not use all the DVI pins. This I discovered after much struggling when one machine would not display anything from the DVI with a DVI monitor but when a VGA monitor was plugged in and a DVI>>VGA adaptor was used it dispalyed OK. THre was a cracked sinlge port on the DVI output and the DVI connector enaged this but the DVI>>VGA adaptor did not use this pin socket!
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