Module 8: Managing Network Printers
Introduction to Administering Printers |
- Delete a document
- Set a notification
- Change a documents priority
- Pause and resume a printer
- Redirect documents
- Purge a printer
- Take ownership of a printer
- The requirement for administering printers is the Full
Control print permissions
- Members of the
- Administrators,
- Print Operators
- Server Operators
- Power Users
have this permission
Group |
Built in
capabilities |
Print Operators and Server
Operators |
- Add and remove printers
- Share printers
- Take ownership of a printer
|
Power Users |
- Add and remove printers
- Share Printers
- Take ownership of a printer
|
How Documents are printed: |
There is a spooler on the print server
- It's like a buffer for print documents
- if a document becomes stuck in the spooler, you might need to restart the spooler using Control
Panel, Services
Windows NT and Windows 95 - Based Clients
These systems have an additional spooler on the client computer - this local spooler
does half the job and then sends it on to the print server. This gives you control of the
application you are using more quickly.
Here's the process:
- printer driver partially processes the document to an acceptable format for the print
device
- document goes to the spooler on the CLIENT computer where it stays until there is room
in the print server spooler
- the print server spooler finishes processing the document. The document waits until a
print device is available. Then, it prints.
Other Clients
For other clients there is only a spooler on the print server
Here's the process:
- the printer driver completely processes the document to an acceptable format for the
print device
- the document waits in the print server spooler until a print device is available
For Non-Microsoft based clients, the appropriate service must be running on the print
server:
UNIX |
TCP/IP Line Printer Daemon (LPD) Service |
NetWare |
File and Print Services for Netware (FPNW) |
Macintosh |
Services for Macintosh |
Setting a Notification, Priority and Printing Time |
These are all ways to control print jobs:
To |
Do this |
Why you would want to... |
Set a Notification |
type logon name of the user you want to notify |
do this when someone other than the user who printed the document needs
to go get it from the printer |
Change a document priority |
Move slider to any number you like:
99 highest; 1 is the lowest |
Change so critical documents print first |
Set available hours |
Set the range of hours that the document can print |
To print a long document at night. This allows you to make sure the document spools
correctly during work hours, but that it prints at night. |
- You can redirect documents to either a local or network
print device.
- For example, if a printer is connected to a faulty print
device, redirect the document so users don't need to resubmit them.
- You can't create, delete or configure ports over the
network; YOU HAVE TO DO THAT LOCALLY
- When redirecting a printer, the new printer must use the
same print device driver as the current printer
- You may also need to remove the original port to ensure the
documents print to the redirected port
- When there are multiple ports, the printer searches for an
available port in the order that the ports were added
Taking Ownership of a Printer |
By default, the user who installed the printer own it
if that user is gone, you can take ownership in order to
change printer administrators
These users can take ownership of a printer
- members of these groups
- Administrators
- Print Operators
- Server Operators
- Power Users
- a user or member of a group that has FULL CONTROL
permission for the printer
To take ownership:
From the Printer dialog box:
File | Properties | Security | Ownership
Click Take Ownership
Identifying Printing Problems |
Problem |
Possible Cause |
Solution |
User gets an Access Denied message when trying to configure a printer from an
application |
- user doesn't have appropriate permissions to change printer configurations (Need FULL
CONTROL)
|
- give user the permission
- or do it for the user
|
document doesn't print completely or comes out garbled |
|
change the printer driver (Oh Henry, Oh Henry) |
hard disk starts thrashing and document doesn't reach print server |
- not enough hard disk space for the spooler
|
Create more free space or move the spooler location to another partition.
(How do you do this?) |
No one can print- documents on the server that you can't print or delete |
|
Stop, then restart the SPOOLER SERVICE |
|