OT: interesting printing issue with WinXP/CorelDraw 11

background: Built a VB 6 app that develops graphics through CD 11. Worked on Win2k great for about around a year. It printed to a printer on the network and to a printer at a plant in another city through VPN.

Recently, it was moved to a WinXP box. It will now only print the the network printer and not the one through VPN. Even opening a saved page built by the VB app won't print to the VPN printer. Other graphics apps will print to the VPN printer (Illustrator, Acrobat).

The CD graphic hits the printer, we see it blinking, etc, then it just dies. We don't get an error message or anything, it just quits trying to print.

I'm stumped for a reason. We've installed the latest CD 11 patch. Anyone have any possible thoughts what might be going on? I'm inclined to think that XP may not like CD 11 and that the printer file itself may be getting corrupted in it's travel down the VPN tunnel, but that's a little beyond me.

[Alex]

So, I recon this also happens when printing from Draw 11 using UI, not through automation, right? I can't tell because I never tried printing over VPN. Maybe install the VPN printer driver locally and direct it to a file, then when the print job is generated, just send it to the printer. There are some small programs which can send a PRN file to a printer just by dragging the file over the printer icon.

But frankly I have no idea. Could be a firewall issue? If you have a firewall in your VPN client, maybe try turning it off. Just a thought...

yes, it also happens when printing from the UI. i have a hard time thinking that the firewall would only affect CD 11 as other apps are printing there fine. but could be the case i suppose.

update: the patch (SP1) seems to have solved it. hmmmm.