I have an old DOS program which has generated thousands of data files during its years of use. It offers printing only to COM and LPT ports. Is there any way of getting it to write to USB? It runs in a Microsoft Virtual Machine running Windows 98SE, from XP. Donald Hawthorn
Try to share the USB printer as though it was on a network, then map the DOS program's output to the share. Microsoft Knowledge Base article 314499 has instructions: How to print to a network printer from an MS-DOS-based program in Windows XP. But if your DOS program prints directly to the port, this might not work. Any other ideas out there?
Backchat: Barry Marsden, Henry Malt and many other readers suggested printing to a file first. Brian says: "I found the easiest solution, if rather roundabout, was to use the PRN2FILE.COM utility." Peter Burrows pointed to a useful page at that offers several ways to print to any Windows printer from Word Perfect for DOS.
Backchat: David Stephens, from Cadomel Library Systems, reckons DOSprn will do the job. "It's a small utility that allows you to direct output from any MS-DOS program to any printer, including USB and network printers. We recommend it to users of our heritage MS DOS applications."
