Article ID: 154007 - Last Review: July 13, 2004 - Revision: 2.2

How To Connect to a Network Printer with the Win32 API

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This article was previously published under Q154007

SUMMARY

Using the Win32 API, it is possible to bring up a predefined Windows Dialog box for connecting to a network printer. The ConnectToPrinterDlg Win32 API works under Windows NT. However, it is not accessible by Visual Basic programs running under Windows 95 because the user interface is so different. Therefore, you must use a Command line equivalent statement to invoke the "Add Printer Wizard" under Windows 95. Below is a code sample showing how to implement both methods of displaying the Dialog.

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MORE INFORMATION

Create a new project with Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
Add a CommandButton, Command1, to the form.

Add the following code to the General Declarations section of Form1:

   Option Explicit

   Private Type OSVERSIONINFO
     dwOSVersionInfoSize As Long
     dwMajorVersion As Long
     dwMinorVersion As Long
     dwBuildNumber As Long
     dwPlatformId As Long
     szCSDVersion As String * 128
   End Type

   Private Declare Function GetVersionExA Lib "kernel32" _
      (lpVersionInformation As OSVERSIONINFO) As Integer
   Private Declare Function ConnectToPrinterDlg Lib "winspool.drv" (ByVal _
      hwnd As Long, ByVal flags As Long) As Long

   Private Sub Form_Load()
     Command1.Caption = "Press Me"
   End Sub

   Private Sub Command1_Click()
     Dim osinfo As OSVERSIONINFO
     Dim iReturn As Integer
     Dim lReturn As Long
     osinfo.dwOSVersionInfoSize = 148
     osinfo.szCSDVersion = Space$(128)
     iReturn = GetVersionExA(osinfo)
     If osinfo.dwMajorVersion = 3 And osinfo.dwMinorVersion = 51 And _
       osinfo.dwBuildNumber = 1057 And osinfo.dwPlatformId = 2 Then
       lReturn = ConnectToPrinterDlg(Form1.hwnd, 0)
     ElseIf osinfo.dwMajorVersion = 4 And osinfo.dwMinorVersion = 0 And _
       osinfo.dwBuildNumber = 67109814 And osinfo.dwPlatformId = 1 Then
       Shell "rundll32.exe shell32.dll,SHHelpShortcuts_RunDLL AddPrinter"
     Else
       MsgBox "Your Operating System has not been detected successfully !"
     End If
   End Sub

Press the F5 key to run the project. Click the buttons to see the results. Depending on which operating system you are running, you will see that one dialog works and one doesn't:

                          NT 3.51          Win95
      ---------------------------------------------

      dwMajorVersion           3              4
      dwMinorVersion          51              0
      dwBuildNumber         1057       67109814
      dwPlatformId             2              1

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