Using Active Directory to Find Printers

A networked printer serves many users and offers better resource management and greater flexibility than stand-alone printers. However, a networked printer can be more difficult for your computer to locate because it is not directly connected to the user s computer.

The Add Printer wizard supports searching and installing printers using the Active Directory directory service.

Using Active Directory, users can search a range of printer attributes to find a printer. If you use subnets to define the sites within your organization, the Active Directory directory service can find printers near you. Locating the closest printer has formerly been difficult for both administrators and users.

For example, if you are in Los Angeles and want to find all the Los Angeles printers in your deployment, in the Location dialog box, type US/LAX. If US/LAX matches the printer location syntax in Active Directory, your search might return the following results:

• US/LAX/1/101

• US/LAX/2/103

These results indicate that two printers are available in Los Angeles. The printers are located in buildings 1 and 2 and in rooms 101 and 103.

Note 

A printer in Active Directory must be serviced by a print server. If you print directly to a network printer, you cannot use Active Directory. When printing over a Microsoft Windows 2000 based network, you can choose between printers on your local area network (LAN) and printers available on the Internet.

To search for nearby printers

1. In Search, click Printers, computers, or people, and then click A Printer on the network.

2. In the Location box, type the complete printer location string, or a partial string followed by an asterisk (*).

3. Click Find Now.

Note 

The printer location string must match the syntax specified by the administrator that describes the location in Active Directory.

Searching Active Directory Fields

When you search for printers in large environments, you might need to use a specific format to find a printer in the location you want. You can create specific formats by using a standardized format for the Location attribute of each printer. The Location field allows approximately 250 characters and permits you to describe printer locations in various ways. For example, the following formats describe a printer located in New York City in building 3 on floor 5:

• New York/Building 3/Floor 5

• NYC/Bldg III/Fifth floor

• NY/B3/F5

When you understand how a printer location is formatted in Active Directory, you can create more effective searches.

To search for a printer that has specific characteristics

1. In Search, click Printers, computers, or people, and then click A Printer on the network.

2. Click the Features tab.

   Use Features to create searches for printers using a predefined set of commonly sought features.

   or

   Click the Advanced tab. (Use the Advanced tab to search Active Directory by using Boolean operators. You can construct complex searches based on any available criteria.)

3. Enter your search criteria, and then click Find Now.

Active Directory returns a list of all printers that match your query. Note that if a printer query has characteristics different from the ones listed in Active Directory, you might receive misleading search results and be unable to find the appropriate printer.

Searching Active Directory Locations

You can make your search of Active Directory locations more effective by using the following:

• Location tracking, which can be enabled.

• A standardized location naming convention that is assigned to each site, subnet, or computer object.

• Sites based on one or more subnets.

If these methods are available, you can find printers in your location quickly.

To search for printers by using Active Directory location tracking

1. In Search, click Printers, computers, or people, and then click A Printer on the network.

   Your current location appears in the Location box if your deployment uses location tracking.

2. If your current location does not appear, click Browse to find printers in other locations.

3. Enter any other search criteria, and then click Find Now.

For more information about searching, see Searching Active Directory Fields earlier in this chapter.

For your users to search for nearby printers by using subnets, your deployment must have the following:

• A directory service with more than one subnet.

• A network IP addressing scheme that roughly matches the physical layout of your enterprise.

• One or more subnet objects for each site.

  You can create subnet objects, and then manage sites by using Active Directory Sites and Services, which is included with Microsoft Windows 2000 Server.

Your deployment can use an extended schema, although in most cases you need to use location tracking instead of extending the schema. All objects in Active Directory have a base set of attributes. You can extend this base set to accommodate the particular needs of your environment. When you use an extended schema, you must construct Boolean searches on the Advanced tab in the Search dialog box. When a limited set of available Boolean operators and choices exists, the Advanced tab provides the set.

Although using location tracking is typically an effective solution, if it fails, administrators might extend the schema to include attributes such as printer city, printer building, or printer floor. Entering complete and accurate descriptions of printer locations in Active Directory can save time later.

For more information about Active Directory and extending the schema, see Active Directory Schema in the Distributed Systems Guide.

For more information about setting up location tracking sites on a Windows 2000 based server, see Windows 2000 Server Help.

Warning 

You can connect to another network printer by entering its printer name, using the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) or Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Using URLs to access printers requires an Internet connection. You must know the UNC or URL of the printer to which you want to connect.