After your printing network is set up, you will be responsible for administering it. You can administer network printers at the print server or remotely over the network. This lesson introduces you to the four major tasks involved in administering network printers: managing printers, managing documents, troubleshooting printers, and performing tasks that require the Manage Printers permission. In this lesson you will also learn that before you can administer printers, you must know how to access them and control access to them.
Managing printers is one of the most important aspects of printer administration, and it includes the following tasks:
A second major aspect of printer administration is managing documents, which includes the following tasks:
Troubleshooting printers, which means identifying and resolving all printer problems, is a third major aspect of printer administration. The types of problems you need to troubleshoot include the following:
The following tasks involved with administering printers require the Manage Printers permission:
By default, members of the Administrators and Power Users groups have the Manage Printers permission for all printers.
You can access printers for administration using the Printers And Faxes window. Windows XP Professional has an improved user interface to make it easier for you to perform daily tasks. When you select a printer icon, many of the common printer management and document management tasks are listed for you, as shown in Figure 7.1.
Figure 7.1 Managing printers and documents using the Printers And Faxes window
These tasks, as well as some additional printer management and document management tasks, are covered in later lessons in this chapter.
To access printers using the Printers And Faxes window, complete the following steps:
Windows XP Professional allows you to control printer usage and administration by assigning permissions. With printer permissions, you can control who can use a printer. You can also assign printer permissions to control who can administer a printer and the level of administration, which can include managing printers and managing documents.
For security reasons, you might need to limit user access to certain printers. You can also use printer permissions to delegate responsibilities for specific printers to users who are not administrators. Windows XP Professional provides three levels of printer permissions: Print, Manage Documents, and Manage Printers. Table 7.1 lists the capabilities of each level of permission.
Table 7.1 Printing Capabilities of Windows XP Professional Printer Permissions
| Permissions |
|
|
---|---|---|---|
Capabilities | Manage documents | Manage printers | |
Print documents | X | X | X |
Pause, resume, restart, and cancel the user's own document | X | X | X |
Connect to a printer | X | X | X |
Control job settings for all documents |
| X | X |
Pause, resume, restart, and cancel all other users' documents |
| X | X |
Cancel all documents |
|
| X |
Share a printer |
|
| X |
Change printer properties |
|
| X |
Delete a printer |
|
| X |
Change printer permissions |
|
| X |
You can allow or deny printer permissions. Denied permissions always override allowed permissions. For example, if you select the Deny check box next to Manage Documents for the Everyone group, no one can manage documents, even if you grant this permission to another user account or group. This is because all user accounts are members of the Everyone group.
By default, Windows XP Professional assigns the Print permission for each printer to the built-in Everyone group, allowing all users to send documents to the printer. You can also assign printer permissions to users or groups.
To assign printer permissions, complete the following steps:
If your computer running Windows XP Professional is in a workgroup environment and you do not have a Security tab in your printer's Properties dialog box, close the Properties dialog box. In Explorer, on the Tool menu, click Folder Options and click the View tab. Clear the Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended) check box, and then display your Printer's Properties dialog box.
The bottom part of the dialog box shows the permissions granted to the user or group selected in the upper part.
Figure 7.2 Assigning printer permissions
You can change the default printer permissions that Windows XP Professional assigned, or that you previously assigned for any user or group.
To modify printer permissions, complete the following steps:
The following questions will help you determine whether you have learned enough to move on to the next lesson. If you have difficulty answering these questions, review the material in this lesson before beginning the next lesson. The answers for these questions are in Appendix A, "Questions and Answers."