For printing see the 'Virtual Printer' thread in the Patches forum.

Thanks for the pointer, I skimmed through first couple and last couple pages.

Could I get a confirmation, that at this point, with some particular build of this DOSBox, I should be able to print to a Windows connected printer?

What is this limited to/by?

I would need to be able to print B&W to dot matrix and/or laser.

I do not need COLOR printing support from DOSBox.

ALL of my windows printers, are connected via Networking, so from the Windows point of view it will either be set to print to a UNC \\server\printer or if needed I can do the whole LPT MAPPING where Windows will print to LPT1 and LPT1 will be mapped to \\server\printer

Is this supported for printing at this time?

Download the free Microsoft Virtual PC.

Although I'd love to see you use DosBox, printing support isn't official supported in DosBox and it sounds like with this application that you'll be better off using VPC.

I'm familiar with the Virtual PC.

Not pleased with the performance of the rest of the Windows when it's running also, the performance of the applications, isn't that good in the virtual PC.

Are you saying from what I've described thus far, DosBox is NOT a good idea for this?

If it works, then it is a good idea. If it doesn't, help will be scares. Did you read this thread: Virtual printer

> Could I get a confirmation, that at this point, with some particular build of this DOSBox, I should be able to print to a Windows connected printer?

To be sure you have to try it.

> What is this limited to/by?

It emulates an b/w Epson ESC-P printer. It converts the printer data to a picture file and sends that to the spooler. The fonts look a bit crappy but it can be improved by using the Microsoft fonts. There seem to be some bugs with underlining bold and such and since the patch isn't really maintained it may stay like that for some time.

> I would need to be able to print B&W to dot matrix and/or laser.

That emulated printer can do b/w text and graphics.

> I do not need COLOR printing support from DOSBox.

It can't do color.

>ALL of my windows printers, are connected via Networking, so from the Windows point of view it will either be set to print to a UNC \\server\printer or if needed I can do the whole LPT MAPPING where Windows will print to LPT1 and LPT1 will be mapped to \\server\printer

>Is this supported for printing at this time?

If configured right the Windows printer select dialog will pop up when the printer is used the first time.

MiniMax wrote:

If it works, then it is a good idea. If it doesn't, help will be scares. Did you read this thread: Virtual printer

Yes that is the thread I read before posting further.

thanks.

h-a-l-9000,

Thanks... I guess I will need to just bite the bullet and start working with this thing, however before I go any that last step, I forgot to mention the 2nd item I know I will need to work before I consider this.

All of my resources are on network drives.

does DosBox see network attahed drive letters?

if so it will be worth trying.

If not, then there would be no point.

Thanks again!

Of course you can mount network drives, and you can even do:

mount c \\computername\sharename

excellent, I guess I wil just have to take the plunge and see what happens.

From what I was readin over in the printer thread, there are particular versions that will work with that.

What version should I be working with, and where do I get it from please?

DOSBox SVN Builds

You can also try Vmware Server which is also free and finally came out of beta a couple of days ago. If you've ever used Vmware Workstation then it's exactly like that except Vmware Server is based off of GSX Server so it has those features as well.

Vmware is MUCH faster than VPC.

You know what, I have used VMware Workstation before, and I almost forgot about that.

It's been about 2 years or so, maybe it's improved?

I should give that a spin again as well.

Thanks again for everyones help