Managing Printers with Print Management Component

The Print Management Component (PMC) was added to Windows 2003 R2 as an add-in component to help organizations better manage and administer printers on an enterprise basis. Prior to the Print Management Component, a network administrator would have to point to each network printer or printer server individually to manage and administer the device. For a large enterprise with hundreds of printers and dozens of printer servers, selecting print servers each time a printer needed to be managed was a very tedious task. Furthermore, if the administrator didn't remember which printer was attached to which print server, finding the printer and print server that needed management could take a while.

The Print Management Component provides a single interface where an administrator can open the Print Management utility and view all printers and print servers in the enterprise. Furthermore, PMC can be configured to group printers together so that certain administrators can manage and administer only certain printers. As an example, if an organization has an administrator for a particular building, the PMC interface can be filtered to list only the printers within the building. This allows the administrator to see only certain printers for which he is responsible, as well as consolidate multiple print server groups of printers into a single interface for management and administration.

The Print Management Component needs to be installed only on the system from which the administrator is managing; it does not need to be installed on all print servers or systems in the enterprise. Functionally, PMC could be installed on just one system.

Installing the Print Management Component

To install the Print Management Component, the Windows 2003 R2 components need to be installed on the system (see the section, "Preparing a System and Installing the Windows 2003 R2 Components," in Chapter 3 for installation instructions). Perform the following steps to enable the Print Management Component option on the system:

1.	Log on to the desired server using an account with Local Administrator access.
2.	Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.
3.	Click Add/Remove Windows Components, and double-click the Management and Monitoring Tools folder. Select the Print Management Component option and click Next.
4.	Click Next to install the component, and then click Finished when done. The installation of the Print Management Component typically does not require you to restart the server.

Configuring the Print Management Component

After the Print Management Component has been installed on a system, the utility needs to be configured to identify the printers and print servers in the enterprise. Printers can be manually added to the Print Management tool for administration and management, or the network can be scanned to attempt to automatically identify printers in the enterprise.

To configure print management resources, launch the Print Management utility by doing the following:

1.	Select Start, Settings, Control Panel.
2.	Open the Administrative Tools folder and double-click Print Management to launch the Print Management Component. Upon opening the Print Management Component, a screen will appear similar to the one shown in Figure 19.12. Figure 19.12. Print Management utility in Windows 2003 R2.

Adding New Printers as Network Shared Resources

There are two ways to add new printers to a Windows 2003 R2 network. One way is the standard Windows printer installation method of using the Add Printer option. The other option is using the new Print Management utility and adding a printer within the utility. Both methods return the same result, so the main reason to use the Print Management utility method is to simplify all print management tasks of adding, modifying, and managing printers from a single utility.

Using the Add Printer Option in Windows to Add a Local Printer

To add a new printer that is locally attached to a Print Server using the standard Windows Add Printer option method, do the following:

1.	Select Start, Settings, Printers and Faxes.
2.	Click Add Printers to launch the Add Printer Wizard, and click Next to bypass the initial installation screen.
3.	Because the printer is locally attached to the Print Server, select Local Printer Attached to This Computer, and then click Next.
4.	Choose the port (LPT1, LPT2, COM1, COM2, and so on) to which the printer is attached, and then click Next.
5.	Choose the manufacturer and the printer type of the printer being added (such as HP for manufacturer and Laserjet 2200 for printer type), and then click Next.
6.	When prompted, give the printer a name (such as "HP Laserjet 2200 in the Marketing Dept"), and then click Next.
7.	When prompted whether you want to share the printer, select the Share Name option and type in a name that will describe the printer (such as HP2200MKTG), and then click Next.
8.	For location, this is optional, but in an enterprise, it is helpful to describe where this printer is located so that when you want to find a printer, you have a better description of the printer and where it is located. For location, enter something such as Building 11, 2nd Floor, and then click Next.
9.	If you want to do a test page, select Yes; otherwise, choose No, and then click Next.
10.	Click Finish to complete the addition of the printer.

Using the Add Printer Option in Windows to Add a Network-Attached Printer

To add a new printer that is attached directly to the network backbone using the standard Windows Add Printer option method, do the following:

1.	Select Start, Settings, Printers and Faxes.
2.	Click Add Printers to launch the Add Printer Wizard, and click Next to bypass the initial installation screen.
3.	Because the printer is network attached, select A Network Printer, or a Printer Attached to Another Computer, and then click Next.
4.	Enter the printer name or URL of the printer that will be shared (such as \\pserver1\hpljet). Note If the printer has a network adapter built directly into the printer, such as an HP laser printer with a JetDirect Ethernet port on the back of the printer, see the installation manual that comes with the printer. As an example, for HP printers with built-in Ethernet, you would need to install the HP JetDirect software that comes with the printer to assign an IP address to the printer using the HP utility, and then the utility will walk you through the process of publishing the printer on the Windows network. When using the printer vendorprovided utility, you can skip this section.
5.	Choose the manufacturer and the printer type of the printer being added (such as HP for manufacturer and Laserjet 2200 for printer type), and then click Next.
6.	When prompted, give the printer a name (such as "HP Laserjet 2200 in the Marketing Dept"), and then click Next.
7.	When prompted whether you want to share the printer, select the Share Name option and type in a name that will describe the printer (such as HP2200MKTG), and then click Next.
8.	Entering a location is optional, but in an enterprise, it is helpful to describe where this printer is located so that when you want to find a printer, you have a better description of the printer and where to find it. For location, enter something such as Building 11, 2nd Floor, and then click Next.
9.	If you want to do a test page, select Yes; otherwise, choose No, and then click Next.
10.	Click Finish to complete the addition of the printer.

Using the Add Printer Option in the Print Management Component

Another option of adding a printer to the network is to use the Print Management Component utility to add the printer. This process is identical to adding the printer using the Windows Add Printer option addressed in the previous section. However, instead of using two separate interfaces for adding and managing printers, using the Print Management Component option can centralize the tasks into a single interface.

To start the Add Printer Wizard within the Print Management Component, do the following:

1.	Expand the Print Servers section of the Print Management interface.
2.	Right-click one of the print servers listed in the Print Servers section of the interface and choose Add Printer.
3.	If the printer is attached directly to the print server, follow the instructions in the "Using the Add Printer Option in Windows to Add a Local Printer" section of this chapter.
4.	If the printer is attached directly to the network, follow the instructions in the "Using the Add Printer Option in Windows to Add a Network-Attached Printer" section of this chapter.

Adding Print Servers to the Print Management Component

After printers and print servers have been added to the network, as noted in the previous sections, an administrator can begin to add print servers to the Print Management Component to centrally view, manage, and maintain the printers on the network.

Adding a print server to the Print Management Component will allow the administrator to manage the print server and all the printers the print server hosts. To add a print server to the Print Management Component, do the following:

1.	Right-click the Print Servers item in the Print Management utility and choose Add/Remove Servers.
2.	Type in the name of the print server you want to add, or click Browse and search the Microsoft Windows Network to view the various servers in the environment.
3.	Click OK to add the print server.

Using the Print Management Component

With printers added to the network and print servers added to the Print Management Component, an administrator can begin to centrally view, manage, and administer the printers and print servers. Some of the tasks that an administrator can perform from the Print Management Component are tasks that an administrator would normally do right on the print server, such as change printer ports, add or modify forms, or view the status of printers whether the printers are online or not. Other tasks are new to the Print Management Component, such as creating custom printer filters that allow multiple administrators to view and manage selected printers based on their site, rights, and roles.

Performing General Printer Administration Tasks

From within the Print Management Component, the administrator can perform general printer administration task. Some of these tasks include

• Updating printer drivers By right-clicking the Drivers item on the Print Server section of the Print Management interface and choosing Manage Drivers, an administrator can update or change a printer's printer driver. This is rarely done in a network environment, but there are times when a new printer add-on, such as an envelope feeder or expansion paper feeder or sorter, is added, and a new printer driver is needed to support the new add-on.

• Forms By right-clicking the Forms item on the Print Server section and choosing Manage Forms, an administrator can create and delete new forms to support different-sized paper or to specify a custom letterhead paper form. Additionally, within this interface an administrator can change the printer port to which a printer is attached on a print server, define log settings, and enable the function to have users notified when a print job has successfully completed printing.

Note

One might wonder when someone would ever create a new printer form or worry about being notified when a print job has been completed, especially when most print jobs are simple 1-page emails or a handful of pages of a Word document. However, a creative use of this feature is used by accounting departments, publishers, or other individuals that print large print jobs. One would want to know when a 400-page document has finished printing, or when 100 sets of a 15-page document are finished printing, collating, and stapling. By creating a custom form, which may just be a simple 8 1/2 x 11-inch form with advanced notifications enabled to notify the user that job has been completed, a user who chooses that form instead of the normal 8 1/2 x 11 form will be notified when the print job has been completed.

Creating Custom Printer Filters

A unique function of the Print Management Component is the Custom Printer Filters function that enables an administrator to group printers typically for the purpose of distributing the administration of printers in the environment. For large organizations that might have multiple buildings, sites, and administration boundaries of devices such as printers, the administrators can perform a filter view to see only the printers that fit within their administrative responsibilities.

First of all, to view all printers in the environment, an administrator can click the All Printers section of the Custom Printer Filters section of the Print Management interface. All the printers for the network will be listed here.

Note

If printers on the network are not listed in the All Printers view, please refer to the section, "Adding Print Servers to the Print Management Component."

To create a custom printers view, do the following:

1.	Right-click the Custom Printers View in the Print Management utility and choose Add New Printer Filter.
2.	Type in a descriptive name for this filter view, such as All Printers in the San Francisco Site or All Printers in Building 11.
3.	In the Field drop-down box, choose a field that will contain information that can be filtered. In many cases, the print servers can be filtered because a print server frequently serves printers in a specific geography. Alternatively, organizations that entered location information for printers, such as Building 11, would be able to filter for that designation in a custom printer filter filtered by name. An example might be Field=Location, Condition=Contains, or Value=Building 11. Click Next to continue.
4.	In the Set Notification options page, an administrator can note an email address where the administrator can be notified on the status of events related to the printers in the filter. This might include being emailed every time a printer is offline or every time a printer is out of paper. Enter the appropriate email information (email address, SMTP mail server to be used, and message desired), or leave this section unchecked, and then click Finish.

By clicking on the newly created filter, the filter rule is applied and the printers noted in the filter will be displayed as shown in Figure 19.13. In this figure, you will notice a designation that there are six printers in the environment; however, the filter is searching only for printers in Building 11, and thus only four printers are displayed for this administrator to view and manage.

Figure 19.13. Sample custom printer filter.

Virtually an unlimited number of printer filters can be created to show different groupings of printers to be managed or administered. Organizations have created custom printer filters by printer manufacturer, such as HP, Xerox, and Sharp, or by printer type, such as laser, color laser, and plotter, to be able to view assets by make, model, or configuration.