[THIN] Re: Xerox Phaser 4400

Hi Steve,
 
There's nothing wrong with native Postscript drivers, and it's not that hard to 
port third-party postscript drivers into native format (get rid of resource 
DLLs and just use ppd file). For text only printing, postscript is quite 
efficient. Mix in graphics and doesn't look quite so attractive from a print 
job size viewpoint.
 
Before I get flamed I should state that postscript can be really efficient, but 
there's unfortunately a huge gap between theory and practice with most 
postscript driver implementations..
 
I had some nasty experiences on NT4 TSE with some of the third party (eg 
Xerox!!!) postscript drivers. Pain tends to be something you remember for a 
long time so I can understand Stephen's tendency to PCL. 
 
If in doubt I graft the postscript PPD file on to the native postscript driver, 
and with the exception of some special features (and a possible print size 
penalty), postscript is fine.
 
regards,
 
Rick
 
Ulrich Mack 
Volante Systems 


________________________________

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Steve Parr
Sent: Fri 11/03/2005 8:12 AM
To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [THIN] Re: Xerox Phaser 4400


Thanks Rick.
That takes my understanding a few notches up.
By the way are Postscript drivers that bad in comparison to PCL on Citrix.
I noticed the printer matrixes from Stefan Vermullen tend to map the PCL 
drivers for
Postscript drivers which would indicate a preference to not install PS drivers 
on Citrix.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Mack [mailto:Rick.Mack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:46 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [THIN] Re: Xerox Phaser 4400
 
Hi,
 
Last things first I guess.
 
This is possibly a bit unfair but I think that UPDII was a stopgap until Citrix 
could get the EMF printing sorted out.
 
The 2003 4500 driver definitely produces smaller print jobs. I suspect HP have 
been reworking their drivers (at least some of them) to make them a bit more 
efficient. Had one site where updating their HPLJ 4200 drivers resulted in a 
70% reduction in the size of print jobs. Over the WAN this was a massive 
improvement.
 
In terms of using 2003 drivers generically on 2000, yes it'll work, and it 
certainly gives you a lot more "native" drivers to play with without worrying 
about the truly awful drivers some manufacturers have turned out.
 
I agree with your ordering in general. The basic criteria you can use to screen 
a manufacturers drivers (accept/reject, try alternatives first) are: is it a 
version 3 driver, does it use unidrv.dll (Universal driver mechanism), does it 
use 5 DLLs or less.
 
As an example, many HP printer drivers (non-PS one anyway) are unidriver-based. 
Now if only they'd get rid of all the fancy (zoom etc) crap (reduce number of 
resource DLLs) they'd be really good. Lexmark went through a bad patch but 
they're pretty good now, Xerox, as stated are variable. A lot of others just 
use variants of HP's PCL drivers.
 
Citrix UPDs aren't necessarily going to be better than the trusty HPLJII (which 
is what UPDI is). The problem is what they do at the client end. When you see a 
5 MB print job blow out to 300 MB at the client end (and hugely slow 
printing!!!) then the UPD mechanism just doesn't seem as attractive. I view 
Citrix UPD as a very convenient (in terms of admin input) but expensive (in 
terms of WAN bandwidth) alternative.
 
regards,
 
Rick
 
Ulrich Mack 
Volante Systems 
Level 2, 30 Little Cribb Street 
Coronation Drive Office Park 
Milton Qld 4064 
tel: +61 7 32431847 
fax: +61 7 32431992 
rmack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
 
________________________________

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Steve Parr
Sent: Fri 11/03/2005 1:08 AM
To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [THIN] Re: Xerox Phaser 4400
The OS is win 2000.
Do you mean replacing the HP Color LaserJet 4500 driver on the Citrix Win 2000 
box(which is the UPD II driver by default) with the HP Color LaserJet 4500 from 
Win 2k3 CD OR generally to use the Windows 2003 version drivers as native 
drivers on the the Win2k box - eg. Lexmark Win2k3 drivers for Lexmark printers?
 
If I understand your email I think you are suggesting this type of ordered 
preference for printing on a Win2k Citrix box:
1)For a Xerox Phaser 4400(can replace this model with any non-HP Laserjet) 
first try using the Windows 2003 native driver for this Xerox printer ie. the 
Xerox driver that comes on the Win2k3 CD to map to clients Xerox printer/driver.
2)Next to try would be the Win2k driver on the Win2k CD 
3) If the Xerox Phaser driver not available on Win2k3 or Win2k CD download from 
the manufacturer a version 3 driver for that model which can generally tell by 
looking at Server properties in Printer settings to see if it says win2k driver 
OR win2k and NT driver(in which case with NT is version2 and to be avoided). Is 
that method of checking always foolproof? Thinking some manufacturers could be 
cutting corners and claim a driver is version 3 but not actually be.
4)Use the UPD II or UPD I OR create a mapping to another HP Laserjet such as HP 
LJ 4/5//8. Are the UPD's a better choice than using CMC to map to another HP 
driver? I figure Citrix may have done a little extra work to make the UPD's 
more stable than other hp LJ drivers, so maybe UPD's are all things being equal 
going to be better choice than mapping to even the trusty HP LJ4.
 
The idea about using NUL: seems like a good one ...
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Mack [mailto:Rick.Mack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:54 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [THIN] Xerox Phaser 4400
 
Hi Steve,
 
You didn't state whether its Windows 2000 or 2003. But native drivers are 
generally a first choice, followed by aliases and UPDI/II. If it's Windows 
2000, then replacing the 2000 UPDII with the 2003 drivers makes for 
significantly smaller print jobs. But if you're really serious then thinprint, 
simplify printing, EOL universal printer etc are much better.
 
However you can improve 200 prinitng options a lot by using native 2003 drivers 
since 2000 and XP/2003 all use the same printer mechanism. You can port any 
2003 native driver to 2000 without too much hassle.
 
Traditionally the Phasers have had quite good drivers (I'm still in love with 
the Phaser 850 [then tektronix]). However with Xerox it depends on where the 
printer comes from. If it's from Japan, the drivers are third-party and 
sometimes dodgy, if from the US the drivers are generally okay. Always provided 
they really are version 3 (non-kernel mode) drivers of course.
 
You can get a reasonable idea of the stability of a printer driver by creating 
a local port to NUL: and attaching the printer to that port. Let's you test 
"print" hundreds of pages/documents without killing a single tree.
 
regards,
 
Rick
 
Ulrich Mack 
Volante Systems 
________________________________

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Steve Parr
Sent: Wed 9/03/2005 11:19 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Xerox Phaser 4400
Has anyone successfully used the native drivers successfully with XP FR3? Am 
mapping HP drivers instead at moment but users want some advanced functionality 
that may only work if it seems if you use the native drivers - the usual trade 
off between functionality and stability.
Will version 3 Xerox Phaser 44OO drivers be stable?
  
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