Specifying default settings for the Black Ice Printer
Drivers
In most cases, developers using the Black Ice printer
drivers will want to install the Black Ice printer with
default settings which are specific to their application or
service.
Windows 2000 and XP operating systems allow each user to
have their own printer settings. The default printer driver
settings are used by the system to create the initial
settings for new users who have never used that particular
printer. If a user has already changed their printer
settings, the operating system will have already saved the
printer settings for that user and that user’s printer
settings can be modified only by the user themselves through
the printer preferences dialog box, or by uninstalling and
reinstalling the printer with different default settings.
Changing the settings under the Advanced tab change the
default settings for a printer, however they do not affect
the current printer settings unless the user presses the
“Restore Defaults” button. Additionally, changing the Black
Ice printer settings through the installation’s user
interface will change the settings only for the current
user, the printer settings are not changed globally.
In order to specify the default settings for the Black Ice
printer drivers, developers can either modify the Black Ice
printer driver INI file (Case A) or they can set specific
printer settings through the BlackIceDEVMODE DLL or OCX
(Case B).
Case A – Using the INI file
Settings specified in the INI file will be used to configure
the Black Ice printer driver at installation time as the
default settings for any Black Ice printer driver user on
the system. To set the printer driver settings at install
time a specific INI file can be used and modified to reflect
the desired settings. The INI file for each Black Ice
printer driver is located by default in the "\Program
Files\Black Ice Software, Inc\Black Ice Color Printer
Driver\Distribution" folder. (for the color driver for
example) The “Distribution” folder is installed with the
Printer Driver.
The INI file names are as follows:
For the XP/2000/NT Drivers
BiCIniNT.ini - for the Color driver
BiAIniNT.ini - for the ColorPlus driver
BiEIniNT.ini - for the EMF driver
BiMIniNT.ini - for the TIFF driver
BiPIniNT.ini - for the PDF driver
For the Terminal Server Drivers
BiCIniTS.ini - for the Color driver
BiAIniTS.ini - for the ColorPlus driver
BiEIniTS.ini - for the EMF driver
BiMIniTS.ini - for the TIFF driver
BiPIniTS.ini - for the PDF driver
In order to use the INI file to specify default settings,
developers must perform the following steps:
-
Modify the Black Ice printer driver's INI file to
reflect your desired settings
-
Include the updated INI file in your installation
-
Rebuild your installation to include the INI file
-
Uninstall any previous version of the printer driver
-
Reboot your system
-
Install the new printer driver installation which uses
the updated INI file.
The Black Ice printer drivers read the INI file at
installation time and use the settings in the INI file to
set the printer driver settings. If you change the INI file
after installing the driver, the only way to have the driver
use the new settings is to press the "Restore Defaults"
button (for every existing user).
For any settings specified in the INI file and the
installation project doesn’t set the printers default
settings, the settings from the INI file will be used. For
a complete list of settings and additional details on using
the INI file, developers are encouraged to refer to the
Resource Toolkit documentation.
Case B – Using the BlackIceDEVMODE Controls
Developers can use the BlackIceDEVMODE DLL or OCX to set
specific settings from their installation to be used as the
default printer settings for all users. To change default
printer settings using the BlackIceDEVMODE controls,
developers should perform the following function/method
calls:
LoadBlackIceDevmode (PrinterName)
EnableKeepExistingFiles (Devmode)
…
SaveBlackIceDevmode (PrinterName, Devmode)
The above example sets the Keep Existing Files option, if
developers want to set any additional Black Ice printer
settings they should simply add the function/method call in
between the LoadBlackIceDevmode and SaveBlackIceDevmode
calls.
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