Chapter 8, Administering Print Services

Chapter 8, Lesson 1

Introduction to Windows 2000 Printing

|1| 1. Terminology

A. Printer

1. A printer is the software interface between the operating system and the print device.

2. The printer defines where a document will go to reach the print device, when it will go, and how the various other aspects of the printing process will be handled.

B. Print device

1. A print device is the hardware device that produces printed documents.

2. Microsoft Windows 2000 supports two types of print devices: local and network.

a. Local print devices are those that are connected to a physical port on the print server.

b. Network print devices are those that are connected to a print server through the network instead of a physical port.

C. Print server

1. A print server is the computer on which the printers associated with the local and network print devices reside.

2. The print server receives and processes documents from client computers.

D. Printer driver

1. A printer driver is one or more files containing information that Windows 2000 requires to convert print commands to a specific printer language.

2. A printer device is specific to each print device model.

|2| 2. Requirements for Network Printing

A. At least one computer to operate as the print server

1. At least one computer is necessary to operate as the print server.

2. The computer can run Windows 2000 Server and Professional.

a. Windows 2000 Server can handle a large number of connections and supports client computers running MS‑DOS, Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, and NetWare client redirectors and printing services.

b. Windows 2000 Professional is limited to 10 concurrent connections from other computers for file and print services and does not support Macintosh or NetWare clients.

B. Sufficient RAM to process documents

1. Sufficient RAM is necessary to process documents.

2. If there is not sufficient RAM, printing performance deteriorates.

C. Sufficient disk space on the print server

1. Sufficient disk space on the print server is necessary to ensure that Windows 2000 can store documents and other printable data sent to the print server.

2. If there is not enough space to hold all documents, users will get error messages.

|3| 3. Guidelines for a Network Printing Environment

A. Users’ printing requirements

B. Company’s printing requirements

C. Number of print servers required

D. Where to locate print devices

|4| 4. Printing Configurations

|5| A. Non-remote, local print device

1. The print device is plugged into the parallel port of the computer that runs the application.

2. The printer driver and the job queue are on that computer.

|6| B. Non-remote, network print device

1. Each computer has its own job queue and cannot see the documents queued on the print device by other computers.

2. Contention among computers submitting documents might cause the print device to time out or reject print jobs.

|7| C. Remote, local print device

1. Many clients share access to the print device through the server.

2. The job queue resides on the server and is visible to each client.

3. Printing is controlled by the server administrator.

4. Clients might also be connected to other print devices, and the print server often has several attached print devices.

|8| D. Remote, network print devices

1. The print device is connected to the server over the network.

2. One print server manages several print devices.

|9| 5. Creating and Sharing Printers

A. Use the Active Directory Printer wizard to create and share printers.

B. Use the Add Printer wizard to connect to remote print devices.

1. Creating a printer means installing the print device either directly on a print server or on the network and then configuring the printer software that controls the print device on the print server.

2. Connecting to a printer means connecting to the share on the computer that created the printer.

Chapter 8, Lesson 2

Setting Up Network Printers

|10| 1. Installing a Local Print Device

A. The steps for adding a printer for a local print device or for a network print device are similar.

B. Use the Add Printer wizard on the print server.

C. The wizard guides you through the steps necessary to add a printer for a print device connected to the print server.

|11| 2. Installing a Network Print Device

A. You do not need to place network print devices near the print server.

B. Network connections transfer data more quickly than printer cable connections.

C. Use the Add Printer wizard to add a printer for a network print device.

D. Many network print devices use TCP/IP.

|12| 3. Sharing an Existing Printer

A. You can share an existing unshared printer for a print device.

B. Follow specific guidelines when sharing a printer.

1. You need to assign the printer a share name, which appears in My Network Places. Use an intuitive name.

2. You can add printer drivers for Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, all versions of Windows NT, and Windows 2000.

3. You can choose to publish the printer in Active Directory services so that users can search for the printer.

C. To share an existing printer, open the Printers window and then configure the properties for that printer.

Chapter 8, Lesson 3

Administering Network Printers

|13| 1. Accessing Printers

A. Gaining access to printers

1. Use the Printers window.

2. Use the Find feature in the Active Directory Users And Computers snap-in.

B. Controlling printer usage and administration

1. You can assign permissions through the Security tab of the printer Properties dialog box.

2. Permissions allow you to control who can use and who can administer a printer, as well as the level of administration.

C. Windows 2000 provides three levels of printer permissions.

1. Print

2. Manage Documents

3. Manage Printers

D. You can allow or deny permissions.

E. By default, Windows 2000 assigns the Print permission for each printer to the Everyone group.

1. You can assign permissions to users or groups.

2. You can change the default printer permissions that Windows 2000 assigned or those that you previously assigned for any user or group.

2. Managing Printers

|14| A. Assigning forms to paper trays

1. You can assign a form to a specific tray.

2. To assign a form to a tray, select the printer in the Printers folder.

3. If an option is grayed out on a printer’s properties, that feature is not installed or is not available on the printer.

|15| B. Setting a separator page

1. A separator page is a file that contains print device commands.

2. Separator pages have two functions.

a. To identify and separate printed documents

b. To switch between print modes

3. Windows 2000 includes four separator pages.

a. Pcl.sep

b. Pscript.sep

c. Sysprint.sep

d. Sysprtj.sep

4. You can build your own custom separator pages by creating a .sep file that contains legal printer commands.

5. You can customize existing .sep files.

|16| C. Pausing, resuming, and canceling documents

1. Pausing or resuming a printer or canceling all documents on a printer might be necessary if there is a printing problem.

2. There are two places within the Printers window to pause, resume, or cancel all documents.

3. You can perform a number of tasks when you manage printers.

a. Pausing printing

b. Resuming printing

c. Canceling all documents

Note You can also pause a printer by taking the printer offline. When you take a printer offline, documents stay in the print queue, even when the print server is shut down and then restarted.

|17| D. Redirecting documents to a different printer

1. You can redirect documents to a different printer.

2. You can redirect all print jobs for a printer, but you cannot redirect specific documents.

3. You can redirect documents by opening the Properties dialog box for the specific printer.

4. If another print device is available for the current print server, you can continue to use the same printer and configure the printer to use the other print device.

|18| E. Taking ownership of a printer

1. By default, the person who installs the printer owns it.

2. A number of users can take ownership of a printer.

a. A user or a member of a group who has the Manage Printers permission for a printer

b. Members of the Administrators, Print Operators, Server Operators, and Power Users groups

3. Taking ownership of a printer is an advanced security feature that can be accessed from the Advanced button on the Security tab of a printer’s Properties dialog box.

4. Auditing can be used to track who successfully and unsuccessfully attempts to take ownership of a printer.

3. Managing Documents

|19| A. Pausing, restarting, and canceling a document

1. If there is a printing problem with a specific document, you can pause and resume printing of the document.

2. You must have the Manage Documents permission for the appropriate printer to perform these actions.

3. To manage a document, open the window for the printer and select the document.

4. You can perform a number of tasks when managing individual documents.

a. Pausing the printing of a document

b. Resuming the printing of a document

c. Restarting the printing of a document

d. Canceling the printing of a document

|20| B. Setting notification, priority, and printing time

1. You can control print jobs by setting the notification, the priority, and the printing time.

2. You must have the Manage Documents permission for the appropriate printer to perform these document management tasks.

3. Use the General tab of the Properties dialog box for a document to set the notification, the priority, and the printing time for the document.

4. You can perform a number of tasks when controlling a print job.

a. Setting a notification

b. Changing a document priority

c. Scheduling print times

4. Administering Printers from a Web Browser

|21| A. Web administration

1. You can manage a printer from any computer running a Web browser.

2. All management tasks you perform with Windows 2000 management tools are the same when you use a Web browser.

|22| B. Using a Web browser to manage printers

1. Allows you to administer printers from any computer running a Web browser

2. Allows you to customize the interface

3. Provides a summary page listing the status of all printers on a print server

4. Can report real-time print device data

|23| C. Using a Web browser to access printers

1. To gain access to all printers on a print server, open the Web browser and go to http://<print_server>/printers.

2. To gain access to a specific printer on a print server, open the Web browser and go to http://<print_server>/<share>.

|24| 5. Setting Up a Printer Pool

A. A printer pool is one printer that is connected to multiple print devices through multiple ports on a print server.

B. Users can print documents without having to find out which print device is available.

C. A printer pool has a number of advantages.

1. In a network with a high volume of printing, it decreases the time that documents wait on the print server.

2. It simplifies administration because you can administer multiple print devices from a single printer.

|25| 6. Setting Priorities Among Printers

A. You can set priorities among groups of documents that all print to the same print device.

B. To set priorities among printers, point two or more printers to the same print device (the same port), and then set a different priority for each printer.

7. Troubleshooting Common Printing Problems

A. Overview

1. When you detect a printing problem, always verify that the print device is plugged in, powered on, and connected to the print server.

2. To determine the cause of a problem, first try printing from a different program to verify that the problem is with the printer and not with the program. If the problem is with the printer, ask specific questions.

a. Can other users print normally to this printer and print device?

b. Does the print server use the correct printer driver for the print device?

c. Is the print server operational, and is there enough disk space for spooling?

d. Does the client computer have the correct printer driver?

e. Are the Print Spooler service and the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service running on the print server?

B. Print server properties

1. If you suspect that there is a problem with the print server, you can access the properties of the print server from the Printers window.

2. For a high-volume print server, consider moving the spool folder to a partition other than the boot partition.

C. Reviewing common printing problems

Chapter 8, Lesson 4

Printing and Active Directory Services

|26| 1. Overview of Printing and Active Directory Services

A. Information about printer queues, sites, names, and addresses is kept in the Active Directory store.

B. Pertinent characteristics of the relationship between printer servers and Active Directory services include various types of information.

1. Each print server is responsible for publishing its own printers in the Active Directory store.

2. The print server does not have an affinity with any specific domain controller.

3. When a printer is updated on the print server, the changes are automatically propagated through Active Directory services.

4. Printers are published in the Active Directory store as printQueue objects.

C. By default, printing is integrated with Active Directory services to work without administrative intervention.

1. Any printer shared by a print server is published in Active Directory services.

2. The printQueue object is placed in the print server’s computer object in the Active Directory store.

3. When any change occurs in the printer’s configuration, the Active Directory object is updated.

4. If a print server disappears from the network, its printers are removed from Active Directory services.

2. Publishing Windows 2000 printers

|27| A. Overview of publishing printers

1. You can publish only printers that are shared.

2. The Add Printer wizard does not let you change this setting when you create a printer.

3. Printers that are added by using the Add Printer wizard are published by default.

4. The printer is placed in the print server’s computer object in Active Directory services.

|28| B. Publishing mechanisms

1. The print server sends data asynchronously to Active Directory services.

2. The printer is published to a random domain controller, so a query might not show the printer until it has been replicated to all the domain controllers.

|29| C. Pruning orphans

1. When a printer is deleted from a print server, the corresponding Active Directory object is removed.

2. An orphan pruner runs on each domain controller to periodically check for orphaned printer objects. If a printer does not exist, the object is deleted.

3. The orphan pruner is controlled by several policy settings.

4. The print server verifies that its printers are published when it restarts and the spooler starts up.

|30| 3. Supporting Windows NT Printers

A. Printers that are on print servers running Windows NT 3.51 or Windows NT 4.0 can be published in Active Directory services.

B. Use the Active Directory Users And Computers snap-in to publish the printers.

4. Group Policy Settings

A. Active Directory services includes a set of group policies.

B. Printer location tracking

1. Printer location tracking in Windows 2000 allows users to search for and find printers at their location or another specified location.

2. Location tracking lets you design a location scheme and assign computers and printers to locations in your scheme.

3. Location tracking overrides the standard method of locating and associating users and printers.

Chapter 8, Lesson 5

Connecting to Network Printers

1. Using the Add Printer Wizard

A. Overview

1. When you add and share a printer, all users can make a connection to that printer and print documents.

2. The method used to make a connection to a printer depends on the client computer.

3. Client computers running Windows 2000 can use a Web browser to make a connection to a printer.

B. Client computers running Windows 2000

1. You can find the printer by using Active Directory services’ search capabilities.

2. You can use the universal naming convention (UNC) name to make connections.

3. You can browse for a printer by clicking Browse.

C. Client computers running Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT

1. On client computers running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT, the Add Printer wizard allows you to enter a UNC name or to browse Network Neighborhood to locate the printer.

2. You can make a connection to a printer by using the Run command on the Start menu and typing the UNC of the printer.

D. Client computers running other Microsoft operating systems

1. Users at client computers running Windows 3.x and Windows for Workgroups use Print Manager to make a connection to a printer.

2. Users at any Windows-based client computer can make a connection to a network printer by using the net use command.

|31| 2. Using a Web Browser

A. If you are using a computer running Windows 2000, you can make a connection to a printer through the corporate intranet.

B. There are two URLs you can use to make a connection to a printer by using a Web browser.

1. http://<print_server>/printer

2. http://<print_server>/<share>

C. You can customize the Web page that is used for printer connections.

D. For a Windows 2000 print server to accept print requests containing URLs, it must be configured in one of two ways.

1. Windows 2000 Server software with Microsoft IIS installed

2. Windows 2000 Professional with Microsoft PWS installed

|32| 3. Downloading printer drivers

A. Client computer

1. When users at client computers running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, or Windows 2000 make the first connection to a printer on the print server, the client computer automatically downloads the printer driver.

2. The print server must have a copy of the printer driver installed.

B. Print drivers are platform specific.

C. Client computers running Windows 2000 and Windows NT verify that they have the current printer driver each time they print.