Re: vDos users: be aware: can't print again if prior print has locked the port

[Carl Distefano cld@xxxxxxxx]

Harry,
> > vDos users: Be aware that printing using a PDF it locks the port, so you
> > must close out the PDF reader before you can print again. (Did I
> > get that right, ...
Not quite. It's not the port that's locked, it's the file, #LPT1.pdf,
which vDos saves PDF output to every time, that's locked -- by your
PDF application, not by vDos.

Kari,
> Carl has a personal workaround but this should be fixed at the system level.
My "workaround" is standard operating procedure for any Windows user
when a file you want to use is locked. You unlock it by closing the
file or doing a "Save As" to a different filename. Locking files is
the default behavior for most Windows applications. I suppose one fix
would be to find (or make) a PDF application that doesn't lock the
files it opens. (But not locking files on a modern OS has a downside,
too.)
At the vDos-(lfn) level, the only fix I can think of would be to
generate a unique filename for each print-to-PDF operation. The
filename could be saved to the user's Windows temp file directory
(%TEMP% and/or %TMP% in the Windows environment). The downside there
is an accumulation of temp files, but regular housekeeping should take
care of that.

--
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx