Question Re: No Printers are Installed - Printtoprinter problem from Scheduled Task in Technology Q&A

No Printers are Installed - Printtoprinter problem from Scheduled Task

Former Member — Tue, 10 May 2016 16:31:36 GMT

I'm writing a console application in C# and I'm being required to print out Crystal Reports to a printer rather than email them. When I test the application in debug mode, the reports print to the printer. When I create an executable and put it out on a network drive, I'm able to get the reports to print. When I log into a remote server using the administrator account and run the executable off the network drive, I'm able to get the reports to print.

The problem I'm having is that when I try to run the executable as part of a scheduled task, I'm getting the "no printers are installed" error. The scheduled task is being run under the domain administrator's account. I set it to run even if the user isn't logged in (but we still leave the domain administrator's account logged into the server) and save the administrator's password with the scheduled task.

Does anyone have any idea of how I might resolve this? Here's the offending code below, just in case anyone needs it:

if (isPrintedOut)

{

crystalReport.PrintOptions.PrinterName = "\\\\print_server\\printer";

crystalReport.PrintToPrinter(1, true, 0, 0);

}

Re: No Printers are Installed - Printtoprinter problem from Scheduled Task

former_member11696 — Tue, 10 May 2016 17:18:31 GMT

See this MS KKBA on how to expose User Printers to the System:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;184291

Don

Re: No Printers are Installed - Printtoprinter problem from Scheduled Task

Former Member — Wed, 11 May 2016 15:40:38 GMT

I tried it, even though, I'm running a console app and not an ASP web page and the scheduled task is running using the domain administrator's account rather than the system account. But the steps in that KB didn't resolve the issue.

Re: No Printers are Installed - Printtoprinter problem from Scheduled Task

former_member11696 — Tue, 17 May 2016 20:35:01 GMT

Use ProcessMonitor and see if thsoe registry keys are being read while your app is running.

See if my printer app works for you, search for KBA 2163438.

Don

Re: No Printers are Installed - Printtoprinter problem from Scheduled Task

Former Member — Fri, 20 May 2016 16:31:04 GMT

Don, thanks for your help. I found out what the problem was. This code below was not setting the printer.

crystalReport.PrintOptions.PrinterName = "\\\\print_server\\printer";

So, at the times I tested it where it printed successfully (either in debug mode of the project or when double-clicking the compiled executable file), it was just using the default printer for the currently logged-in user.

I looked further and found the solution in this article: https://scn.sap.com/thread/2099449

Changing from this:

crystalReport.PrintOptions.PrinterName = "\\\\print_server\\printer";

crystalReport.PrintToPrinter(1, true, 0, 0);

to this:

System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings printersettings = new System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings();

printersettings.PrinterName = PrinterToUse;

printersettings.Copies = 1;

printersettings.Collate = false;

Report.PrintToPrinter(printersettings, new System.Drawing.Printing.PageSettings(), false);

resolved my issue.

For anyone else reading this, if using the code above you get the error: "Settings to access printer are not valid." Use this bit of code on the machine where you plan on running the program to get the list of valid printers (if you're making a console application):

foreach(string myPrinter in System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters){

Console.WriteLine(myPrinter);

}

Console.ReadLine();