Sometimes you are embarrassed to conntect Mac OS X Leopard with a Windows XP printserver. It should work the Mac plug-and-play way … but it isn’t. So here is the howto, so you don’t need to trouble your head about it.

Context:
In the first corner: A Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.3) machine
In the second corner: A Kyocera 2000D laser printer connected to a Windows XP printserver which is protected by password and username.

Problem:
Adding the printer via the standard Apple-way as a windows printer works – but printing does not work because it is not possible to authenticate against the printserver.

Solution:
You need to add the shared printer via the hidden “Advanced” printer feature in the Print & Fax preferences.

• Open “Print & Fax” in “System Preferences”
• Click “+” to add a new printer
• Control-click (or right-click) on the toolbar at the top of the window and select “Customize Toolbar…”
• Drag the “Advanced” icon to the toolbar and select “Done”
• Click on the “Advanced” icon … and be patient … after a moment or two, you can select “Windows” from the “Type” dropdown-menu
• Enter the SAMBA URL of the shared windows printer in the “URL” textfield:
  smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@WINDOWSDOMAINNAME/PRINTSERVER/PRINTERSHARENAME or
  smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@IPADDRESS/PRINTERSHARENAME
  If the shared printer does not need a password, you can use smb://USERNAME@…
• Fill out the other fields “Name” and “Location” as you prefer
• When printing the first time you will get prompted for your USERNAME and PASSWORD. Fill in your windows printserver username and password and enable the “Add this to your keychain” checkbox.

… it’s nearly plug-and-play

The huge system update to Mac OS X 10.5.3 with 200 to over 400 MB resolves a lot of bugs and adds up some additional features to Leopard. Example: More digital cameras with their specific RAW-formats are supported now. Or the possibility to sync the Apple Address Book application with Google Contacts.
Great to see that WIFI stability was increased by the Apple developers.
An annoying – but resolvable – problem appeared after updating when I tried to use the time logging software TimeLog 4: All log entries within TimeLog are saved in iCal – and after upgrading to 10.5.3 my work time entries just doubled. It’s easy to fix the problem by deleting every dublicate log entry – but you better checkt the timesheet in detail before you hand it out to your customer