Printer ports shared with NET USE disconnect after few minutes

[sivaranjan]

I am running Windows XP and there was an old DOS program that was working fine in it. This program normally uses LPT1, LPT2 and LPT3 ports so that it can print tickers and many things. But recently I have purchased a new computer that came with Vista preinstalled and we started having issues. After configuring the printers and using the NET USE LPT2: \\computer\printer/PERSISTENT:yes, since I use printserver for the standalone printers, it is able to print on all the ports without any issues. The printer is working properly and I have done a lot of tes but if the computer stays on standby for sometime then when I am trying to send a print job to the LPT2 or LPT3, the ports seems to have disconnected. But when I used NET USE to send some data to the port then the first time a message appears that the port is not ready but again when I use it second time then it will print just fine. There might be some new configuration in Vista, because previously it was working fine under XP? Can anyone tell me the difference? Thanks

[Tomthegreat]

It seems to be a weird problem. When Windows 2003 and Windows XP were released, many people used to get an auto disconnection problem. So, I want to find it out if it is a similar scenario going around with you as well. The computer that you have is connecting to the printer on a server or a workstation?

[sivaranjan]

The printers are connecting to an ethernet print server and it has lp1, lp2 and lp3 ports. First of all I installed a printer and then added a new TCP/IP port which connects to the print server and its port. Then I am testing the print to make sure that it is working properly. After that I am sharing the printer to the network. Then I am using the batch file with NET USE port: \\computer\printer/persistent:yes commands. Any data sent to the printer can be printed the first time, but when there are no print jobs done in few minutes then it gets disconnected.