Rating: 
Summary: Product didn't match manual and Nonexistent tech support
Review: I purchased a Linksys 10/100 4 Port Switch with Print Server. I had two problems with it. First: the unit arrived with two printer ports but only one printer port status LED. The manual clearly shows two status LEDs, one for each port, but the faceplate only had holes for one. Second: I couldn't get it to work with my HP 5L Laserprinter. The directions were clear enough, but I couldn't get the Linksys software running on my 200 MHz Pentium Pro to recognize the HP printer. I called the Linksys supposedly 24/7 tech support (at 9 PM PST) and the recording told me that my call would be answered in 20 minutes. I gave up after waiting 55 minutes to talk with someone. The next night I called at 7 PM PST and waited 45 minutes before giving up. No one at Linksys ever responded to my email asking for help. I called on the third day during business hours and was told that tech support would call me back--they did not. I contacted SMC for information about their router/print server and got an email response within 3 hours. That did it. I returned the Linksys PrintServer (Thanks Amazon for such a great return policy) and bought a SMC Wireless Router/Switch/Printserver. It worked great! The Linksys PrintServer might be OK if it works for you, but don't count on getting any tech support.
Rating: 
Summary: Printer Server
Review: I purchased the Print server for a Macintosh network. I was looking to move my Epson 1520 to the server, so I could remove the printer from one of the mac actting as a server. It did not work at all as a Mac Print server, I wish apple would of left the local talk on the machines. I was able to get it to work from Virtual PC on my Mac, so the networking was setup correctly. I was also slow as a hub with the macs. They are all 100mb machines, and when connected they ran slower than the 10mb hub that they were connected to. This box is a good idea, I wish that you could setup with the Macs, because we need a way to connect these stupid parrallel printers that we use now, since lost the network printers.
Rating:
Summary: Worked for me
Review: I purchased this so we could print without having to keep the computer next to the printer on all the time. Am using two Epson printers: Epson 1270 and 2200.Print server installed OK. I was confused by the docs because they seemed to be saying I needed to do something to make it work via DHCP, turns out this is the default behavior. Otherwise I got through the install with only one short call to LinkSys tech support. I got through immediately. Being a software support engineer myself, I would give the engineer a 4 out of ten for customer service skills. My Epson printers use a 'bidirectional' process to show the levels of ink in the printers. This no longer works, so I guess I'll just need to have some ink replacements ready for when the red light goes on in the printer itself, or ocassionally hook it up to a computer to check the levels. I also had to mess around with the Epson printer driver to turn off it's communication error checking and advanced features. Otherwise it would give me an error message that there was a communication problem. These were not enough to make me want to send it back as the product makes it very convenient for our network and is relatively easy to deal with as far as networking products go.
I also notice a considerable improvement in the network file transfers using the included 10/100 switch. As many of the reviewers have said, there are some problems with install etc., but if you can get past this, having a print server can be a great addition to your network. I would also say that at some point users will have to gain some understanding of TCP/IP to get very far with any network project...
Rating:
Summary: Terrible with Win2000
Review: I purchased this unit May 2001 and am ready to take it back. It may work well on older networks, but with a pure Windows Network and Window 2000, it is a loss. It does have full documentation for Netware, DOS and such, but there is no mention of Windows 2000 anywhere in the documentation nor a support page on the website for w2k and this unit. I did find a w2k driver at the mfr website, but no other information. The 16bit bi-directional utility promptly hung my normally super-reliable server system. The manual says you have to install IPX/SPX also, but based on other information in the manual, that may not be true. Also, if used with (really great) the LinkSys DSL router, it appears that if the system is not started up in the right order the IP address will change and you may have to re-set everything.
Rating: 
Summary: Works with XP but takes some tinkering
Review: I read all the reviews so I was expecting some extra work to get this print server working with XP. The trick is using a static IP address, not DHCP. Go ahead and install the "BI Admin" utility because it allows you to configure the print server via a browser page, but use a static IP address. And just enter that same static IP when you configure your printer port (printer properties, add TCP/IP port). Linksys tech support can help - although this is yet another company that has outsourced tech support to the Phillipines and India. That's a big check mark against them in my book.
Rating:
Summary: Works with XP but takes some tinkering
Review: I read all the reviews so I was expecting some extra work to get this print server working with XP. The trick is using a static IP address, not DHCP. Go ahead and install the "BI Admin" utility because it allows you to configure the print server via a browser page, but use a static IP address. And just enter that same static IP when you configure your printer port (printer properties, add TCP/IP port). Linksys tech support can help - although this is yet another company that has outsourced tech support to the Phillipines and India. That's a big check mark against them in my book.
Rating:
Summary: Such High Hopes..dashed
Review: I so wanted this to work, it would have been a perfect add to my small home network using their Etherfast Cable/DSL Router. I have an epson and hp 4 and running XP, and 2 Win98 PCs. Manual was sadly lacking, nothing explained why sometimes certain documents from my XP would print, but others would result in an error 22 on on the HP (the epson just flat didn't work). A troubleshooting section and compatibility list would have been nice. Even after turning off the advanced features and several other HP "workarounds" it didn't work as advertized. Plus very unhappy I had to load additional protocols, which according to their email tech support should have solved my problems, which it did not. A total waste of a weekend, and money. I'll keep dinking with it since I want to add 2 more PCs and a laptop and the additional ports are needed - and don't want to throw more money at my home network for now. Maybe they'll actually put something useful on their website..
Rating:
Summary: Beware if you have older printers
Review: I use a Canon BJ 5000 on Win 98. The Print Server is incompatible with this model. After researching other user reviews, I discovered this Print Server doesn't play well with several older printers. I'm returning this server and pursuing other options.
Rating:
Summary: Allen
Review: I'd like to start off by stating that overall I use and like many of the linksys products, including the routers, wirless products and network adaptors. I also work with computers for a living, so I tend to be able to resolve most technical problems on my own accord. This product attempts to fill an industry niche of allowing any parellel printer to be network ready. It does this in two ways, a browsable print server or a locally configured port. I was running this product without a problem for a while, although it frequently would get confused and drop the connection and require rebooting. I have it attached to an HP Laserjet 5P which is a very reliable and stable printer. I noticed that if I ran the product in a mixed type mode using some of the browser print servers and some port based configurations, it would crash and just stop working and require a reset. When I changed everything to the same configuration it worked better. When I tried to configure and work with the print server from my Windows XP Home edition laptop things got very messy. I was able to figure out that the Windows XP built in firewall was blocking any use of the EFSP42 Linksys print server. To confirm my findings I did extensive testing and actually read the firewall logs. Apparently, this server was accessed on the normal port 80, but responds on port 3079. To solve this problem I had to turn off the build in XP firewall. I don't blame this on Microsoft, it was just functioning as a stateful inspection firewall should, however; linksys developed this product long before XP was on the market and has not put out updated firmware to deal with this situation. I called Linksys and spoke with someone in the tech support, their response was we don't ever recommend using any personel firewalls. Perhaps microsoft and some of the other personal firewall manufactures should be aware of the fact that linksys is telling people not to use their products. The fix is relatively simple for Linksys, simply don't randomly change the inbound port (it should be the same as the outbound), but the technical support person couldn't understand the nature of the problem. If you can affort to purchase a dedicated network printer, or a print server from the printer manufactures this is a far better long-term solution. You can also use any computer on your home network and set up print sharing and essentially create your own print server. I tried to upgrade the firmware from the website using the bi-admin, but the version on the website could not recognize me device, so the techntion had to email me a 4 MB file not available to the general public. This updated utility was able to recognize the device, but then when I went to flash the firmware, I recieved a "H/W Mismatch Error". So, now I've send another email to Linksys to try and get the proper "bin" file which apparently is not on their website either. For some reason this product will NOT allow you to update the firmware from the web administrative pannel and requires the bi-admin utility (seems like a very inconsistent solution compared to their other product lines). My guess is that this product was produced very quickly to fulfil a small market niche and not much R&D or quality went into the design. They haven't undated the firmware in over two years, which apparently has caused many problems. I gave it two stars because the 4 port switch worked, although a "C" note for a 4 port switch seems like a lot. Good luck to anyone who purchases this product, you will need it!
Rating: 
Summary: Unsupported Product with many problems
Review: I'd like to start off by stating that overall I use and like many of the linksys products, including the routers, wirless products and network adaptors. I also work with computers for a living, so I tend to be able to resolve most technical problems on my own accord. This product attempts to fill an industry niche of allowing any parellel printer to be network ready. It does this in two ways, a browsable print server or a locally configured port. I was running this product without a problem for a while, although it frequently would get confused and drop the connection and require rebooting. I have it attached to an HP Laserjet 5P which is a very reliable and stable printer. I noticed that if I ran the product in a mixed type mode using some of the browser print servers and some port based configurations, it would crash and just stop working and require a reset. When I changed everything to the same configuration it worked better. When I tried to configure and work with the print server from my Windows XP Home edition laptop things got very messy. I was able to figure out that the Windows XP built in firewall was blocking any use of the EFSP42 Linksys print server. To confirm my findings I did extensive testing and actually read the firewall logs. Apparently, this server was accessed on the normal port 80, but responds on port 3079. To solve this problem I had to turn off the build in XP firewall. I don't blame this on Microsoft, it was just functioning as a stateful inspection firewall should, however; linksys developed this product long before XP was on the market and has not put out updated firmware to deal with this situation. I called Linksys and spoke with someone in the tech support, their response was we don't ever recommend using any personel firewalls. Perhaps microsoft and some of the other personal firewall manufactures should be aware of the fact that linksys is telling people not to use their products. The fix is relatively simple for Linksys, simply don't randomly change the inbound port (it should be the same as the outbound), but the technical support person couldn't understand the nature of the problem. If you can affort to purchase a dedicated network printer, or a print server from the printer manufactures this is a far better long-term solution. You can also use any computer on your home network and set up print sharing and essentially create your own print server. I tried to upgrade the firmware from the website using the bi-admin, but the version on the website could not recognize me device, so the techntion had to email me a 4 MB file not available to the general public. This updated utility was able to recognize the device, but then when I went to flash the firmware, I recieved a "H/W Mismatch Error". So, now I've send another email to Linksys to try and get the proper "bin" file which apparently is not on their website either. For some reason this product will NOT allow you to update the firmware from the web administrative pannel and requires the bi-admin utility (seems like a very inconsistent solution compared to their other product lines). My guess is that this product was produced very quickly to fulfil a small market niche and not much R&D or quality went into the design. They haven't undated the firmware in over two years, which apparently has caused many problems. I gave it two stars because the 4 port switch worked, although a "C" note for a 4 port switch seems like a lot. Good luck to anyone who purchases this product, you will need it!
| 
