Windows Server 2003 can act as a print server for any client platform. Logical printer is the representation of the printer (print device) on the server: drivers, settings, defaults, and other properties. Print servers provide the following advantages:

• centralised management of settings and drivers
• single print queue
• error messages visible on all clients
• print server shares load of printing, inproving client responsiveness
• centralised security, auditing and monitoring

Add Printer

Select 'local printer' or 'network printer'. Local printer signifies a directly attached printer or a network attached printer, and is therefore the correct choice when installing to a print server. A network printer is a printer managed by another print server. By default shared printers will also be listed in AD (control this via sharing tab). By default, drivers are installed to support XP/2000/2003 clients. Additional drivers can be installed by the sharing tab. Windows clients will install these when they connect, and also retrieve updates whan available (95/98 clients do not automatically check for updates). Printers and print jobs are managed from their properties pages. Three permission levels specific to printers:

• Print, by default assigned to Everyone, allows users to send documents to the printer (deny permissions take precedence)
• Manage Documents, allows cancel, pause, restart or resume a print job. By default assigned to Creator Owner, Administrators, Print Operators and Server Operators. Creator Owner permissions allows creator to manage own documents only
• Manage Printers, allows modify printer settings and configuration, including access to its ACL

A form defines a paper size. Use Device settings tab of printer properties to assign forms to trays, Windows will then automatically route print jobs to the appropriate tray. General tab has printing preferences button and Advanced tab has printing defaults.

Printing Defaults: all user default settings (advanced tab)

Printing Preferences: per-user settings that override the defaults (general tab)

Print Properties: client-side settings for a specific job (overrides all)

Control print usage and administration via the Security tab. Advanced tab also allows you to schedule printer availability, set print processor, spooling options and enable advanced features of the printer. Printer pools allow you to configure a single logical printer corresponding to multiple physical printer. Enable printer pooling from the Ports tab, then select or add ports for the printers. You can also configure multiple logical printers for a single printer, each with unique settings and configuration. For instance, one printer may be given higher priority than another, or only be available out of hours. Printer priority can range from 1 (lowest) to 99 (highest).

Printer Publishing

Logical Printers added to a Windows 2003 server are automatically published in AD. Use find objects in dsa.msc or select 'View Users, Groups and Computers as Containers' to see the printers available. Updates to printers are resent, along with all other properties to the AD store (speed of update reflects replication latency). Printer Pruner service verifies existence of printer every 8 hours: printers are removed if they can not be contacted on two consecutive occaisions. Add Printer wizard automatically publishes printer “ no option to prevent publication. To prevent publication or re-publish a printer, clear or select the 'List in Directory' checkbox on the printers sharing tab after it has been installed. Non-shared printers are not published. NT4 printers are not automatically published: use dsa.msc to add them to directory. Printer Publishing behaviour can be modified using Group Policy. Printer Location Tracking, disabled by default, requires configuration of sites or subnets. In AD sites and services, use the Location tab of a site or subnet to configure a hierarchical location, eg London, Head Office, 4^th Floor, West Wing. Then enable the 'Pre-Populate Printer Search Location text' policy. A users site/subnet will then be used as default location in searches.

IPP

Not installed by default: requires installtion of IIS first. In IIS console, use Web Services Extensions to enable/disable IPP. Printers virtual directory stored at %systemroot%\web\printers. Access printers by:

http://servername/printers (all)

http://servername/printersharename (specific printer)

Managing Printers

Update drivers for a single logical printer using the Advanced tab on the Properties page for the printer. Or you can manage drivers for all printers on the server using the Drivers tab from the Server Properties dialogue. You can redirect print jobs from one logical printer to another by changing its port: the original port will be cleared automatically unless printer pooling is enabled for the printer. Use perfmon and event viewer to monitor printers. Use Server Properties dialogue to control what gets logged using the Advanced tab. Advanced tab also allows you to set spool folder location. Enable auditing for printers using the Advanced button on the printers security tab: also requires auditing enabled in local or group policy. Print jobs create a lot of events, so only turn this on if you are trying to track a particular problem. Troubleshooting steps:

• identify scope of failure: particular application, client, user?
• verify connection to print server: ping, share access?
• verify IP Address: ping printer from server
• verify print server services: including RPC (used for share access)
• (restarting the spooler service deletes all print jobs in all print queues)
• check disk usage on spooler folders