program causing others to stop responding

This is a strange software and possible hardware problem.

Have a client on XP using a program called Silent Partner which is a routing application. Have 2 printers 1) okidata 520 dot matrix 2) hp photosmart. When printing route slips to the dot matrix and then you try to open up Wordperfect - perfect stalls. If you pause the print process to the dot matrix then wordperfect opens. XP has 256mb ram. Machine less than a year old so it has all it should need.

itsgames.com is the producer of this silent partner software and their tech support has no clue so hope someone out there might have a possible suggestions.

thanks.

 

Silent Partner is a database that holds client information as to what gaming machines they have and demographics on that client. They can then print out a daily routing slip that their techs can go by to do their daily calls. My client runs a company that deals with supplying bars and restruants with pool table, dart boards and the fixing of those devices.

When they go into silent partner they select the area for the techs then it send the print job to the okidata dot matrix. Is set to print to the dot. Reason is because the routing sheets are quite long so the dot is a better printer to print to than the inkjet.

 

changed settings to directly, to spool till the last page every setting the printers have. nothing opens when this silent partner is printing not even excel but they all will if you pause the okidata. silent partner naturally says its the machine itself and some settings need to be changed but they dont say what settings and i cant think of any other settings that would cause this other than the printer settings. even though client tells me that it all started happening when they upgraded that software to allow more of a client base to be defined. its an expensive package.

 

More fumbling/groping here but

What happens if you direct the reports to a newer printer (one of the laserjet devices maybe)?

What happens if you use a different word processor than word perfect? For a trial you could try putting a copy of OpenOffice on one of the machines. It's free and is a great suite of Office apps.

Not sure what database engine the Silent Partner uses but all I've seen have a utility to repair and compact the dB. That will often cure strange problems.

 

Newt

when i first sold them this dell i put on 2000 word and was going to just convert the w.p. docs to word but the convert left a lot to be desired. if it had worked then they would have brought their own copy but since it didnt they had no choice because of the volume of docs to keep using w.p.

have not redirected reports to the new inkjet but its worth a try just to see if it works. i will have them try that.

where can i find this free openoffice you mention ???

 

http://www.openoffice.org/ and while I haven't had occasion to use it yet, several very experienced regulars on here who have like it well and I gather from their posts that it will munch other WP versions and render them properly without lots of conversion. Will with MS Office apps for sure and I think probably with the WP stuff as well but not positive.

 

Newt

we redirected the silent partner to the hp and all went just fine. could open w.p. no problem. so its the okidata 320 Turbo Microline that is causing other apps. not to open. so what in a dot matrix would cause it to take all the processing power away from the xp machine ???

i have an epson dot that i use for printing my taxes and i can open up other apps. while its printing and i still have 98 on my main machine. going to switch at year end when i can close my financials out.

 

Question - could you set up a 'print to file' device and have the app 'print' to that then feed the contents of that file to the printer?

I'm guessing you are dealing with some sort of bad synergy between the app and the printer and that would stop them from directly interacting.

 

could try the print to file and see how that works. have an email into okidata to see if they have any ideas also. it is the okidata and the app causing the problem just gotta figure out why the okidata and not the photosmart printer is having the problem.

 

brought up memories from the old days with spooler programs. i do remember them. makes sense your posting with only 28k and these jobs are much larger than that. so either need to find a spooler program compatible with xp or a new dot matrix with more built in memory.

any suggestions for hardware or software options ???

thanks.