USB Point of Sale Reciept Printers

USB Point of Sale Receipt printers are often very difficult to setup as the Point of Sale software often has difficulty printing to USB Printers Directly. Some USB Docket Printers included drivers to remap the USB port to the classic LPT or COM port; but a lot of them don't.

With a lot of my Myob Retail Manager jobs where a user already has purchased printers before coming to me for consultation on the correct hardware to buy my work around for many years was to share the printer on the network and them map the LPT port directly to it; however this was always difficult to achieve if the computer wasn't part of a network.

I googled the problem and the first hit was :

http://geekswithblogs.net/dtotzke/articles/26204.aspx


The following set's up installs a virtual network that you can map the printer to. Its a direct copy from the above site.

1) Install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter

a) In Control Panel, double click on Add Hardware.
b) Click Next
c) When the scan finishes, select "Yes, I have already connected the hardware"
d) Click Next
e) Scroll to the bottom of the list and select "Add a new hardware device"
Click Next
f) Select "Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced)"
g) Click Next
h) Select "Network Adapters"
i) Click Next
j) Select "Microsoft" under the Manufacturer list.
k) Select "Microsoft Loopback Adapter" in the Network Adapter list.
l) Click Next
m) Click Next
n) Click Finish

2) Configure the Adapter

a) The loopback adapter is a virtual network adapter and can be configured the same as a regular network card.
b) Set the adapter to have a static IP address such as 192.168.1.1/ 255.255.255.0

3) Share the printer.
a) I recommend you use a share name that you will remember. I used “Printer” in the new machines that are already deployed.

4) Capture the printer port.
a) NET USE LPT1: \\[Computer Name]\Printer /PERSISTENT:YES

Anyway hope that helps as its go me out of a few tight spots.