>How would I make certain that the default printer is available. If I only have
>a network printer and I'm not on or the network is down, the following code gives me an error 1958:
>report form (pcControlFile) &pcRange to printer noconsole

You might try playing with my DIRPRTCLASS; once you obtain the name of the default printer, you could do something like:

* Sometime before you need to check
SET PROCEDURE TO DIRPRTCLASS ADDITIVE
oDirPrt = CREATEOBJECT('DirectPrintOutput')

* Whenever you need to check printer availability to accept spooled output

lPrinterCanBeAccessed = .F.
IF oDirPrt.PrinterOpen(cWindowsPrinterName_or_PrintPort_or_PrinterUNC)
   lPrinterCanBeAccessed = oDirPrt.DocOpen()
   oDirPrt.PrinterClose()
ENDIF

* lPrinterCanBeAccessed indicates whether you can successfully create
* spool jobs for the selected printer.  It does not indicate that the 
* printer is currently working (it might have a printer jam or be in use
* by another user's print job) but does report if you can spool output to
* it - if it's busy or out of paper or whatever, Windows will accept any
* work sent to it and hold it (spool the output) until it becomes available
* without giving an error. It will not force a page feed or reset the printer
* state or do any of the other things that writing to the GDI might do. It
* also will not affect any VFP printer job currently in progress, even if
* you're in the middle of writing to that exact printer with VFP

You can download this from the Files section - you'll also need ClsHeap, so download files #986 and #1498