Bill Roper's Journal

The process of printing in an MFC app is one of the worst morasses of gaggage I've ever wandered into, and I remind you that I was a PLATO sysprog, so I know gaggage when I see it. It would not surprise me if it is loading the DLLs early in the process as part of getting printer capabilities to set the parameters, through a series of calls that have been modularized to the point they don't understand their own context and hence unload the DLLs again, and then when you actually try to print it has to load them again.

When you have to go out and buy a modem to get around your own firewall, something is wrong with your company.

My final observation is that unless you get lucky and find this quickly, the contortions you're going through to do it remotely are probably going to be more expensive than renting one of the Sharp machines for a bit. Of course, that's assuming your company actually understands that your time is valuable, a concept that eludes some companies I've worked for. "I can pay you to bang your head against this problem for a month, but I don't have a budget to spend $500 to solve it tomorrow."