Useless answer? [ Edited ]

[mobilecc]

reply to ronf57 post (re "Useless Answer):

Although its been a while since your post, I compliment you on your ability to explain the concepts in depth. After reading it I was able to relate the new ideas to what I knew before.

Before I retired  I spent about 14 years at GE computer Department  and Xerox Data Systems as Tech Pubs writer, editor, and manager, and I do also have an engineering background. What has always been most frustrating is when tech savvy people reply to a technical question they assume that the questioner already understands as much of the details (including the acronyms) as they themselves do, and they give an answer that may only be appropriate for the guy sitting at the next desk who has been working in the same technical domain.  These kinds of short answers are useless to many of us other folks who are unfamiliar with the latest technology, or even  some of the basic concepts. I have to agree with the poster who called the initial answers useless.  I certainly didn't get enough information from the first few replies to understand what WSD is all about.

Such terse explanations are not helpful in a public forum.

[Wotcha]

I experienced a similar problem with one of the computers running windows 10 here. 

I had changed our home modem and had to set everything up again.

Her computer kept saying the printer was offline - until I rebooted it when it would mysteriously begin printing. I finally did a Windows Printer Test page from there and it mentioned the WSD port.  Somehow my wife's computer decided it was going to use a WSD port (with a great long 36 digit ID) instead of the fixed network printer address I set as 192.168.2.10 .

Reading through this thread, it all became clear - WSD would only recognise the printer when it first rebooted and seemingly was not retaining the address after it went back to sleep.  

I can only assume that WSD does not poll the devices?

Just how the TCP/IP port check box was deleted and changed to WSD I have no idea.

The only programming I ever did was using Basic (and a few choice swear words) many years ago so I was relieved to sort this out.

I changed the port type on her computer and voila !  back in the land of the living.

[tonerspills]

I just had a service call on a CM6040 for slow network printing. The PCL 6 drivers had WSD ports enabled on 2 different client machines out of 6 client machines set up to print to this particular printer. The machines were set up on a TCP/IP before and nothing had changed on the network and this user I know does not mess with any advanced settings. Network jobs would take 15-20 mins to print. How they were even printing with the WSD port enabled instead of the TCP/IP port is beyond me.

My main point being something in Windows I suppose took it upon itself to enable the WSD port. Win7 64 bit. Who knows?

Simply unchecking the WSD port and reselecting the TCP/IP port and clicking apply in "printer properties" "ports" tab resolved the issue. Just something to watch out for.

[Wotcha]

After a similar thing happening at work, I am inclined to think that the problem may well have been a reset of some sort following a Microsoft update in the previous 24 hrs in both of my cases. (Work - Win7 , home Win10.)

[jjanoiko]

If our network is locked would it be then only people who have the password for that network be able to print to that printer? And would they have access to only that printer? And could changes be made to the printer settings?