USB Printing Support
Supported Platforms:
There is a difference between USB support and USB printing support. Just because a Windows machine has USB support does NOT mean that it supports USB printing. Case in point - Win 95 can support USB devices, but Microsoft is not planning to add USB printing support to Win 95.
Win NT does not support USB at all. Win ME, 2K and XP have USB printing support built in. USB printing support can be added to Win 98 machines by the driver. Check the version that you are using to see if it has the ability to add USB printing support.
Components of USB Print:
The way that USB Printing is added is through two components that are put on the users machine when the printer driver is installed. The components are two Microsoft files called USBMON.DLL and USBPRINT.SYS. Once those are loaded on the machine the OS can add a virtual port (numbered USB001, USB002, USB003. etc) to the list of available ports. Again, the extra components are only needed on Win 98. The port numbering scheme is the same on all versions of Windows supporting USB printing.
Virtual Port:
How do you point the driver to the right virtual port? You really don't. When you first plug in the printer the OS detects it. The OS will ask you for the driver. You point to where the driver is and load it. Since the printer is attached to a given USB port, Windows will automatically assign that port a virtual port identity (USB001, USB002 and so on).
Generic Text Driver:
This begs the question; can you print to a USB printer through Generic Text driver? Yes, you only have to point the driver at the virtual port. That is if your OS can create the virtual port. So, in Win 98 you may not be able to if the OS has not been updated with USB printing support.
Removal:
The tricky issue comes in when you delete the driver. The OS should remove the virtual port because the driver is gone right? Wrong! USB002, 003 and so on will usually go away, but USB001 will usually stay around. This is problem with Windows - not the driver.
Device Identification:
There is another issue. The printer has an "USBPRINT" id that is reported by the printer to Windows when it is plugged in. Essentially, it is the USB equivalent of a Plug and Play string. This "USBPRINT" id is not part of our current Win 9x or Win 2K ZPL drivers and there is no plan to add it to them at this time. This means that our current Win 9x and 2K ZPL drivers are not really appropriate for use via USB. Additionally, they have not been tested for use via USB, so they are not supported for use over USB. EPL driver version v3.97a does support USB printing.
Zebra Universal Driver:
To enable USB printing, you must use Zebra's Universal Driver, version v5003 or higher.
XiIIIPlus:
The XiIII+ will be supporting USB 2.0. Microsoft is offering USB 2.0 support for Win XP now and will offer it for Win 2K later on. They will NOT be offering USB 2.0 support for Win 9x or NT. You can get the latest updates for Windows at: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
USB Converters:
Will a USB Converter work? If you have a serial only or serial/parallel only printer that you want to connect through a USB converter, it's the driver for the converter that is handling the task of updating the system and working through the virtual port. You'd have to point the driver to the virtual port that would have been added when the converter was installed. The point is that it's the converters job to add the virtual port the converter is the device actually connected to the USB port. We do not support the USB Converters. The support for the converter must come from the manufacture. We will support how to set the serial port parameters on the printer.
Note: Eltron had a USB to Parallel Port converter, it only worked on a few printers that powered pin 18 with 5v.
Additional Resources:
Microsoft statements concerning USB printing support in Windows:
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/archive/print/Win98_USBprint.asp
Very general USB info:
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci214166,00.html
A general FAQ on USB:
Microsoft Knowledge Base items on USB:
https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263218
https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q240075