HP4250 - authorisation software to control printer use & facilitate accounting?

Printers larger than the 4250 appear to come with accounting capability
- you can assign passwords to groups or individuals which thereby allows
you to permit use of the machine to authorised users and to account for
machine use.

The 4250 does not, as far as I can tell, include such capability
natively. Is there any software for Windows (98 and probably then XP,
later) which adds this functionality? All I really need is the
authorisation feature, accounting would be useful but secondary.

I would envisage this working such that, having clicked OK in the print
dialogue, you then get prompted for a password.

Thanks for any pointers.

Tim Streater <> wrote:
> Printers larger than the 4250 appear to come with accounting capability
> - you can assign passwords to groups or individuals which thereby allows
> you to permit use of the machine to authorised users and to account for
> machine use.
>
> The 4250 does not, as far as I can tell, include such capability
> natively. Is there any software for Windows (98 and probably then XP,
> later) which adds this functionality? All I really need is the
> authorisation feature, accounting would be useful but secondary.

Print accounting can be very complicated, so I wish you luck.

A simpler alternative is that the LJ4250's built-in print server should
let you limit what IP addresses are allowed to print. Depends on your
network whether that will do what you want.

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

In article <>,
Warren Block <> wrote:

> Tim Streater <> wrote:
> > Printers larger than the 4250 appear to come with accounting capability
> > - you can assign passwords to groups or individuals which thereby allows
> > you to permit use of the machine to authorised users and to account for
> > machine use.
> >
> > The 4250 does not, as far as I can tell, include such capability
> > natively. Is there any software for Windows (98 and probably then XP,
> > later) which adds this functionality? All I really need is the
> > authorisation feature, accounting would be useful but secondary.
>
> Print accounting can be very complicated, so I wish you luck.
>
> A simpler alternative is that the LJ4250's built-in print server should
> let you limit what IP addresses are allowed to print. Depends on your
> network whether that will do what you want.

The printer is on a USB connection to its host. Mostly I want to issue
passwords so I can control who uses the printer.

Tim Streater <> wrote:
> In article <>,
> Warren Block <> wrote:
>> Tim Streater <> wrote:
>> >
>> > Is there any software for Windows (98 and probably then XP,
>> > later) which adds this functionality? All I really need is the
>> > authorisation feature, accounting would be useful but secondary.
>>
>> A simpler alternative is that the LJ4250's built-in print server should
>> let you limit what IP addresses are allowed to print. Depends on your
>> network whether that will do what you want.
>
> The printer is on a USB connection to its host. Mostly I want to issue
> passwords so I can control who uses the printer.

Ah. Windows printer sharing? It's been years, but I think that can be
password-secured. Or you can connect the printer directly to the
network and provide access on a per-IP basis as above.

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA