Printer problem 
I decided that I'd try to use the Windows way of doing shared printers, that is, connect to printers exported by the server rather than connecting directly to TCP/IP ports. The theory is that I then don't have to worry about what kind of printer it is, the server will tell me and supply a suitable driver.
This worked, at least for a couple of weeks anyways.
Today I couldn't print to a customer's printer; it would always time out.
So I tried to browse the computer and get to the printer that way; the server wouldn't let me connect to it.
So I backed down to the big stick of the command prompt and tried to do it:
C:\Users\dave>net view \\server
System error 5 has occurred.Access is denied.
Now you can't use the /user parameter with the
net view command, so instead what you try to do is
net use the
IPC$ share; if you can use that, you can browse the computer:
C:\Users\dave>net use \\server\ipc$ /user:domain\dave
System error 1219 has occurred.Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more
than one user name, are not allowed. Disconnect all previous connections to the
server or shared resource and try again.
OK, I've seen this before. My laptop has tried to connect with the credentials
pegasus\dave instead of the customer's
domain\dave account. So all you have to do is un-use the ipc$ with the wrong credentials, then you can use with the correct credentials:
C:\Users\dave>net use /d \\server\ipc$
The network connection could not be found.More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2250.
...uh, WTF?
C:\Users\dave>net use
New connections will be remembered.
Status Local Remote Network-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK \\saturn\dave Microsoft Windows Network
Disconnected \\nas-01\IPC$ Microsoft Windows Network
The command completed successfully.
...ok, the first one is a connection to my samba server at home (which is not reachable from here, I don't know why it says the connection is OK) and the second one is a connection to a different customer's server, which also isn't reachable. Where's the connection to
server?
Oh fuck it, I'm just going to use a direct TCP/IP connection to this printer.
Update: that worked. Of course.