Examine the Windows Server 2003 network printing environment

1
Goals

• Examine the Windows Server 2003 network printing
  environment
• Install a network printer
• Control access to printers
• Create a printer pool
• Set printer priorities
• Monitor printer performance
• Publish printers in Active Directory
• Troubleshoot printer problems

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(Skill 1)
Introducing the Windows Server 2003 Network
Printing Environment

• Network administrators must manage network
  printing, printer availability, and printer
  security
• A shared printer is an object that can be shared
  with other network users
• Print devices
• Can be attached to servers or client workstations
• Can connect directly to the network with no
  attached computer

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(Skill 1)
Introducing the Windows Server 2003 Network
Printing Environment (2)

• Microsofts printing terminology
• Printer The software interface that delivers the
  request for service from the operating system to
  the physical print device
• Print device The physical hardware that actually
  prints data
• Print server A computer, such as a Windows
  Server 2003 computer, that is connected to and
  sharing one or more print devices used to print
  documents and to manage the printers on a network
• Printer driver The software that contains the
  information used by the operating system to
  convert the print commands for a particular model
  of print device into a printer language such as
  Printer Control Language (PCL) or PostScript

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(Skill 1)
Introducing the Windows Server 2003 Network
Printing Environment (3)

• Microsofts printing terminology
• Spooling Refers to the process of caching the
  print request to a hard disk, which releases the
  application quicker
• Spool A folder where converted print jobs are
  stored before they can be printed
• Print queue A list of print jobs from different
  workstations that is stored on the spooler of the
  print server
• Graphics Device Interface (GDI) Controls the
  creation of any visual output for the operating
  system, either to the monitor or to the printer

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(Skill 1)
Introducing the Windows Server 2003 Network
Printing Environment (4)

• A print device can be accessed through a print
  server
• Using a local print device
• Using network print devices
• The principal distinction between network
  printers and local printers, in Microsoft
  terminology, is where the spooling takes place
• Local printers spool to a location on the local
  hard disk
• Network printers spool to a location on the
  network print server

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(Skill 1)
Figure 9-1 Documents in a print queue
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(Skill 1)
Figure 9-2 The Advanced tab in the Print Server
Properties dialog box
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(Skill 1)
Figure 9-3 The Server Properties command on the
File menu in the Printers and Faxes window
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(Skill 1)
Figure 9-4 The Edit String dialog box
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(Skill 1)
Figure 9-5 Running Print commands at the command
prompt
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(Skill 2)
Installing a Network Printer

• Creating a network printer
• Install the printer locally on the computer that
  is to become the print server
• Share the printer to make it accessible to users
  over the network
• Connect the print device to the local print
  server
• Install the printer software (the printer)
• To install local printers, use the Add Printer
  Wizard on your local computer

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(Skill 2)
Figure 9-6 The Add Printer Wizard
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(Skill 2)
Figure 9-7 Selecting a printer port
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(Skill 2)
Figure 9-8 Assigning a printer name
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(Skill 2)
Figure 9-9 Sharing a printer
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(Skill 2)
Installing a Network Printer (2)

• Sharing print devices
• If you want a member server to connect to a print
  server on a network, use the Add Printer Wizard
  to create a logical printer that will connect to
  the shared print device
• You can also use My Network Places to locate and
  connect to a shared print device, or the Run
  command on the Start menu and enter the UNC
  pathname in the Open text box
• Network-interface print devices
• Many organizations today have network-interface
  print devices that connect to the Internet using
  a network interface card (NIC)
• For these devices, which are not attached to a
  print server, you must configure a TCP/IP port to
  enable communication over the network

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(Skill 2)
Figure 9-10 Creating a new standard TCP/IP port
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(Skill 2)
Enter either the IP address or FQDN for the print
device
Figure 9-11 The Add Port screen
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(Skill 2)
Click to start the Add Standard TCP/IP Port Wizard
Figure 9-12 The Printer Ports dialog box
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(Skill 2)
Figure 9-13 The Add Standard TCP/IP Port Wizard
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(Skill 3)
Controlling Access to Printers

• For security reasons, you may decide to restrict
  certain types of printer usage to certain users
• Printer permissions
• Restrict who can print to a printer
• Restrict who can manage a printer
• Restrict who can manage the documents sent to a
  printer

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(Skill 3)
Controlling Access to Printers (2)

• Printer permissions are assigned on the Security
  tab in the printers Properties dialog box
• Types of permissions
• Print
• Users can connect to a printer and send it print
  jobs
• They can also pause, resume, restart, or cancel
  their own print jobs
• Manage Documents
• Users can pause, resume, restart, and cancel all
  other users printing jobs
• They can connect to a printer and control job
  settings for all documents, but they cannot
  control the status of the printer
• Manage Printers
• The highest level of access
• Grants a user administrative control over a
  printer
• Users can pause and restart the printer, share a
  printer, change printer permissions, change
  printer properties, change printer drivers, or
  delete a printer

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(Skill 3)
Used to specify the settings for a printer, such
as the tray assignments
Used to specify the availability hours for the
printer, set printer priority, install a new
printer driver, change spool options, and manage
printed documents
Figure 9-14 Assigning printer permissions
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(Skill 3)
The Print Operators group is now the owner of the
printer
Figure 9-15 Changing the ownership of a printer
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(Skill 3)
Figure 9-16 Selecting a user or group to whom
printer permissions will be assigned
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(Skill 3)
Figure 9-17 Resuming all print jobs
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(Skill 3)
Figure 9-18 Pausing a single document
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(Skill 3)
Figure 9-19 Canceling all documents
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(Skill 4)
Creating a Printer Pool

• A printer pool is a single printer on a print
  server that is associated with multiple physical
  print devices
• All print jobs that the print server receives are
  distributed equally among the available print
  devices
• Print jobs that are sent to a printer pool are
  directed to the least busy print device in the
  pool
• Use printer pooling when you have a number of the
  same type or similar types of print devices,
  which all use the same driver so that they all
  understand the same set of commands

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(Skill 4)
Creating a Printer Pool (2)

• Creating a printer pool
• Use the Ports tab on the Properties dialog box
  for the printer
• At the bottom of the tab, select the Enable
  printer pooling check box
• Select all of the ports to which you want the
  logical printer to print

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(Skill 4)
To create a printer pool, you must have a number
of the same type or similar types of
print devices, which all use the same driver
Figure 9-20 Enabling printer pooling
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(Skill 4)
Click to open the Printer Ports dialog box
where you select Standard TCP/IP Port and
click the New Port button to initiate the Add
Standard TCP/IP Port Wizard you can then install
and configure the port so that the logical
printer will send its instructions to an IP
address rather than a local port
Figure 9-21 Adding printers to a printer pool
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(Skill 5)
Setting Printer Priorities

• You set printers as high-priority or low-priority
  to control the order in which their print jobs
  will be sent to the print device
• When multiple printers have print jobs in the
  spool that require printing on the print device,
  the printer with the highest priority will print
  first
• For example, you can create two logical printers
  that will both print to the same physical device
• One group of users can be assigned to use the
  first logical printer, and a second group, whose
  jobs you want to take precedence, can be assigned
  to use the second logical printer
• The second logical printer will be assigned a
  higher priority so that its print jobs will be
  completed first

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(Skill 5)
Setting Printer Priorities (2)

• Print jobs sent by higher priority printers
• Bypass the queue of documents in the lower
  priority printer spool
• Are sent to the print device first
• To set the priority for a printer, use the
  Advanced tab on the Properties dialog box for the
  printer.
• The highest priority value is 99 and the lowest
  is 1
• If you do not change the default priority
  setting, any printer with a priority from 2-99
  will have its jobs sent to the print device first
• Use the Available from option button to make a
  printer available only at certain times, which
  may be useful if you have a user or group that
  has a large volume of low-priority printing jobs

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(Skill 5)
Used to set additional properties for printing,
such as setting portrait or landscape orientation
as the default, printing on both sides of the
paper by default, the default paper source if the
printer supports special trays, and the color,
print quality and effects settings, depending on
the capabilities of the print device
Click to verify that the printer is working
Figure 9-22 The General tab in the ltprinter_namegt
Properties dialog box
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(Skill 5)
Makes the system compare the printer setup to the
document setup to determine if they are
compatible if not, the print job will be put on
hold
Allows jobs that have completed spooling to be
printed, no matter what their priority is, which
is useful in high-volume environments so that the
printer will not be idle while waiting for
lengthy jobs to spool
Keeps documents in the spooler after they have
printed so that administrators can recreate a
printout that has been damaged by a printer jam
or other mishap
Figure 9-23 Setting printer priority
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(Skill 5)
Click to verify that the user, group, or built-in
security principal object name you have entered
exists in the domain
Figure 9-24 Setting printer permissions for a
group
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(Skill 5)
Setting Printer Priorities (3)

• Down-level Windows clients
• To install print drivers for down-level Windows
  clients, use the Additional Drivers button on the
  Sharing tab in the Properties dialog box for the
  printer
• Windows clients
• Itanium machines running Windows XP and Windows
  Server 2003
• X86 computers running Windows 2000, Windows XP,
  and Windows Server 2003
• x86 computers running Windows 95, 98, and Me
• x86 computers running Window NT 4.0

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(Skill 5)
Select this option if you do not want documents
to print until they are completely spooled
this option is used for documents that are
assigned a low priority so that those with a
higher priority will start printing right away
Select this option so that the document will not
spool and printing time will be decreased this
option is used with programs that have their
own spooling process
Figure 9-25 The Advanced tab in the Properties
dialog box for a printer
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(Skill 5)
Figure 9-26 Verifying an object
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(Skill 5)
Figure 9-27 The Additional Drivers dialog box
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(Skill 6)
Monitoring Printer Performance

• Administrators must monitor the printers on a
  network so that they can judge their performance
• System Monitor
• Allows you to view important data about the usage
  of hardware resources
• Allows you to monitor the activity of system
  services
• Monitoring performance
• The main object you use to monitor printing is
  the Print Queue object because it is the key
  indicator of a printers performance
• You can choose different performance counters,
  such as Bytes Printed/sec, Job Errors, Jobs, and
  Total Pages Printed to monitor the speed, errors
  encountered, current workload, and total printed
  output, respectively
• The Print Queue counters are reset when either
  the print server or the spooler service is
  restarted

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(Skill 6)
Current number of jobs in the print queue
The number of bytes per second printed on the
print queue
Total number of pages printed through GDI on the
print queue since the last restart
Total number of job errors in print queue since
the last restart
Figure 9-28 Monitoring printer performance
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(Skill 6)
Figure 9-29 Adding counters to monitor printer
performance
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(Skill 6)
Figure 9-30 Examining printer performance with
the System Monitor
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(Skill 7)
Publishing Printers in Active Directory

• Active Directory publishes a PrintQueue object
  for each printer you install on a Windows 2000
  Server or Windows Server 2003 print server in the
  directory by default
• The PrintQueue object contains a subset of the
  information that the print server stores for a
  printer
• If you change the printer configuration on the
  print server, the change propagates to Active
  Directory

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(Skill 7)
Publishing Printers in Active Directory (2)

• The PrintQueue object is stored in the computer
  object for the print server
• To view the PrintQueue objects and other
  sub-objects
• Open the View menu and select the Users, Groups,
  and Computers as containers command
• Open the Computers folder and select any computer
  to display its sub-objects

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(Skill 7)
Figure 9-31 The Users, Groups, and Computers as
containers command
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(Skill 7)
PrintQueue objects for published printers
Figure 9-32 Viewing PrintQueue objects in Active
Directory
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(Skill 7)
The features listed here can be used to conduct a
search for the printer object
Figure 9-33 The Properties dialog box for a
published printer
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(Skill 7)
Click to display the Printers, computers, or
people option, and then select A printer on the
network to open the Find Printers dialog box
Figure 9-34 The Search Companion pane in the
Search Results window
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(Skill 7)
The published printer is located based on the
capability to print double-sided
Figure 9-35 Finding a printer based on a feature
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(Skill 7)
Publishing Printers in Active Directory (3)

• To publish a pre-Windows 2000 printer that has
  been installed and shared, you can create a
  printer object
• A printer object is an object pointing to a
  printer on a server
• You can also use the Pubprn.vbs script to publish
  a printer
• Group Policy for enabling printer
  location-tracking
• Applies to the Windows Server 2003 printing
  environment
• Searches for and find printers at a specific
  location
• To enable printer location-tracking for a domain,
  use the Group Policy Management console
• To use printer location-tracking, Active
  Directory must be installed on the network, and
  there must be more than one site and subnet
• The IP addressing scheme must fairly closely
  match the physical network layout
• Client computers must be able to query via LDAP2
  or later

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(Skill 7)
Figure 9-36 Publishing a pre-Windows 2000 printer
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(Skill 7)
When you enable printer location-tracking, a
Browse button is added next to the Location field
Figure 9-37 The Find Printers dialog box
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(Skill 7)
You enable this group policy to enable printer
location-tracking
Figure 9-38 Enabling the Pre-populate printer
search location text policy
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(Skill 7)
Figure 9-39 Enabling printer location-tracking
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(Skill 8)
Troubleshooting Printer Problems

• Problems in the network printing environment may
  occur for various reasons ranging from a broken
  network connection to the installation of an
  incorrect printer driver
• Printing problems can arise on the users
  workstation or on the print server

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(Skill 8)
Troubleshooting Printer Problems (2)

• Preliminary steps
• Check whether the local devices are plugged in
  and properly connected
• Check the cables and make sure the power is on
• Check the paper and toner
• Try printing a test page
• If you cannot print a test page, try recreating
  the printer on the client, reinstalling the print
  driver, and terminating and re-sharing the
  printer on the print server
• Check the print queue for stalled print jobs
• If nothing is listed under Status (waiting,
  paused, or printing), it is likely the print job
  has stalled

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(Skill 8)
Troubleshooting Printer Problems (3)

• Make sure the print spool service is running
  (open the Services snap-in in the Administrative
  Tools folder)
• Stop and restart the Print Spooler service to
  clear all print queues on the server
• Make sure there is enough disk space for spooling
  on the print server and the print server (75 MB
  or more is recommended)

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(Skill 8)
Troubleshooting Printer Problems (4)

• Problems that may occur when you are trying to
  print a document
• The print device is offline
• The user receives an access denied, cannot access
  printer, or no access available message
• Documents print incompletely or contain junk
  characters
• Your documents do not print, but other users can
  print their documents
• Documents do not print correctly
• Documents do not reach the print server

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(Skill 8)
Figure 9-40 Designing the network printing
environment
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(Skill 8)
Figure 9-41 Stopping the Print Spooler service
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(Skill 8)
Troubleshooting Printer Problems (5)

• Print server problems
• If the problem is not with your workstation and
  other users are facing similar problems, then the
  problem is likely with the print server
• Problems may occur if the print server is not
  using the correct printer driver or if it does
  not have enough hard disk space for spooling
• To troubleshoot print server problems, open the
  Event Viewer on the print server and examine the
  error messages in the System log
• Also open the Print Server Properties dialog box
  from the Printers and Faxes Window

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(Skill 8)
Troubleshooting Printer Problems (6)

• The print server is the source of the problem if
  the following problems arise
• The hard disk of the print server starts
  thrashing and documents do not reach the print
  device
• When you install a printer on the print server,
  the test page does not print
• Several users receive error messages asking them
  to install a printer driver
• Windows Server 2003 includes a Troubleshooting
  section in the Help and Support Center to help
  you solve printer problems

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(Skill 8)
Use to delete a printer and remove it from the
system
Use to reinstall the printer driver
Use to initiate the Add Printer Driver Wizard
Figure 9-42 The Drivers tab in the Print Server
Properties dialog box
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(Skill 8)
Figure 9-43 The Print Troubleshooter