Nevermind...I seem to be good at answering my own questions only after I ask for assistance. Maybe it helps me think thru the problem better...

In any case, this is what I found out. Using NT 40 explorer w/ the QuickView option, WIN32SPL is importing, not exporting OpenPrinter. If I copy WINSPOOL.DRV to WINSPOOL.DLL and do the QuickView, I find that OpenPrinter is exported from there.

Then I realized that STRING @ is technically a pointer to a pointer because the string is already handled as a address

so the true declare shoul look like:

DECLARE INTEGER OpenPrinter IN winspool.drv STRING, INTEGER @, STRING

And then it would be called like:

m.nResult = OpenPrinter( "HP LaserJet 4", @nHandle, NULL )


>Has anyone had the need and been successful at making the OpenPrinter API call work?
>
>I have tried everything and am coming up short. I have a feeling that there may be something undocumented about Windows NT 4.0 and this call perhaps, since the DLL is no longer there.
>
>I have tried using both WINSPOOL.DRV and WIN32SPL.DLL
>
>VFox 5.0 says that it can't find the entry point win WIN32SPL.DLL and it says Data Type Mismatch when using WINSPOOL.DRV.
>
>Both however make it so far as to allow me to do the DECLARE DLL statement.
>
>This is what I believe should work:
>
>DECLARE INTEGER OpenPrinter IN winspool.drv STRING @,
> INTEGER @, STRING @
>OpenPrinter( "PrinterName", @nPHandle, NULL )
>
>I have tried defining a variable for printername, I have tried changing the second parameter to a 4 byte character, I have tried passing NULL to all 3. Each one says Data Type Mismatch.
>
>Has anyone done this successfully?
>