How can I change the "port" the printer uses?

Question

I want to access a Canon LBP3000 printer set as shared on a Windows PC. The Canon driver download does not allow me to find the driver when I try to add it to the shared printer.
However, if I plug the Canon in directly to the Macbook I can install the driver.
Is there a way I can change this "local" printer to point to the Windows PC printer?
In Windows, I would just change the "port" from "USB001" to "\\Windows\Canon".

Answer 1

dougham wrote:
Having connected the printer to the macbook, and added the printer, how can I now tell the macbook that the printer is not attached to a USB port, but is found at \\<windowspc>\<printersharename>? It is a simple problem on a Windows PC to change the port of a printer. Surely it is also possible on a macbook.
It is possible on a Mac but this is not your problem. What Canon told you is wrong. Your problem is not with the Mac but with the Canon driver. The Canon CAPT driver for the LBP-3000 has not been designed to be used when shared from a Windows computer. It expects a direct USB connection to the Mac. The same applies to another proprietary driver called UFR2 for Mac. So no amount of queue changing will resolve your issue.
For the record, to connect to the PC share via Mac, you would normally select to add and then select the Windows icon. This lets you browse the local network, starting at the workgroup level. After selecting the workgroup, then computer, then share name, the URL will look like \\computernamesharename.
In a situation where you need to manually add the address because you cannot browse the network, you can modify the Add Printer toolbar to add the Advanced icon. This is done by Control-clicking on the Add Printer toolbar, selecting Customize Toolbar and dragging the Advanced icon to the toolbar. Then when you click the Advanced icon, a pane appears that lets you select a number of different protocol options, one of which is Windows. Here, in the URL field, after the "smb://" you can enter the computer share name followed by the share name, for example smb://windoze7/myprinter (don't be too concerned that the slashes are the opposite direction).
Pahu