Networking Printer

Networking printer is one of important element in networking environment, either in small sized network or large scale business network. Network Printer Setup is one of the common tasks in a networking environment.

There are two types of networking printer – networking printer in a windows workgroup and networking printer in Windows Server 2003 network infrastructure. Network printer setup tasks on both types of networking printer are slightly different in the way they are managed. But the Install Network Printer process is the same.

Networking Printer both in workgroup and windows server infrastructure can support two types of printers which are represented on the print server as a logical printer:

1. Locally attached printers, the printers are connected to the physical port on a print server typically a USB port or parallel port
2. Network attached printers; the printers are connected to the network instead of physical port using the TCP/IP protocol.

In Windows 2000/2003 server, each type of printer is represented on the print server as a logical printer. The logical printer defines the characteristics and behavior of the printer including the driver, printer settings, print setting defaults and other properties that control the manner in which a print job is processed and sent to the chosen printer.

There are two ways to implement networking printer to network attached printers:

1. Logical printers installed on all computer clients, and connecting those logical printers directly to the network-attached printer. There is no print-server in this first model; each computer maintains its own settings, print processor, and queue, all print job processing is performed locally on the user’s computer, rather than being offloaded to a print server.
2. Three-part model consisting of the physical printer itself, a logical printer hosted on a print server, and printer clients connecting to the server’s logical printer

This article will focus on the second model – the three-part model, although the concepts and skills discussed apply to other printer configurations.

There are some advantages in networking printer using the print server:

• The logical printer on the print server defines the printer settings and manages printer drivers.
• The logical printer produces a single print queue that appears on all client computers, so users can see where their jobs are in relation to other users’ jobs.
• Error messages, such as out-of-paper or printer-jam messages, are visible on all clients, so all users can know the state of the printer.
• Most applications and most print drivers will offload some, or a significant amount, of the print-job processing to the server, which increases the responsiveness of the client computers. In other words, when users click Print, their jobs are sent quickly to the print server and users can resume their work while the print server processes the jobs.
• Security, auditing, monitoring, and logging functions are centralized.

Install Network Printer on Windows server 2003

Network printer setup in Windows server 2003 can be managed through the “Printers and Faxes” folder using the “Add Printer Wizard” that will guide you to Install network printer. The wizard will allow you choose the following critical choices (as shown in the figure below):

Local or Network Printer

The terms local printer and network printer have slightly different meanings. A local printer is a logical printer that supports a printer attached directly to the server or a stand-alone, network-attached printer.

Add printer wizard

When you click the “Local Printer Attached to This Computer”, the server can share the printer to other clients on the network. On the other hand a network printer is a logical printer that connects to a printer directly attached to another computer or to a printer managed by another print server.

Please remember that, in the common print server implementation, the print server will host local printers (whether the printer hardware is attached to the computer or network-attached), and workstations will create network printers connecting to the server’s shared logical printer.

Select a Printer Port

When a local printer on a print server is created, the Add Printer Wizard will prompt you to specify the port to which the printer is attached. The ports, if already exist; can be selected from the “Use the Following Port” drop-down list. If the port does not exist, a new port can be created by clicking the Create A New Port, select Standard TCP/IP Port and click Next. The Add Standard TCP/IP Printer Port Wizard appears. Clicking Next prompts you for the IP address or DNS name of the printer. After the port has been added, you are returned to the Add Printer Wizard.

Install Network Printer Software

Commonly the system will detect any types of Plug and Play devices, but if the system does not detect it that means the system will not install the Networking Printer automatically, select according the printer manufacturer. But if the printer is not on the list, click Have Disk and install the printer from drivers supplied by the manufacturer.

Printer Name and Share Name

The next step to install network printer is providing the printer name and share name for networking printer. Keep the name as simple and short but meaningful according to your configuration standards that include the server name and the logical printer name where it is located for example \\HRD-Server01\PSHRD01. The printer server name is HRD-Server01 which is located in HRD building and PSHRD01 is the printer #1 located in HRD building.

Connecting Clients to Printers

Networking printer that has been setup as logical printer on a print server can be shared to other systems on the network. Those systems will also require logical printers to represent the network printer. On the “Local or Network Printer” page, select “A Network Printer or a Printer Attached to Another Computer”. When prompted for the printer name, you can search Active Directory, enter the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) (for example, \\Server\Printersharename as in the above example \\HRD-Server01\PSHRD01) or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to the printer, or browse for the printer using the Browser service.

Another more efficient ways to set up print clients is to search Active Directory for the printer. In the “Specify a Printer” page of the Add Printer Wizard, choose “Find a Printer in the Directory” and click Next.

The Find Printers dialog box appears and you can enter search criteria including printer name, location, model, and features. Click Find Now and a result set is displayed. Select the printer and click OK. The Add Printer Wizard then steps you through remaining configuration options.

Another way to Install Network Printer to clients (if you use Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP, Vista) can be done using the default Start menu with the following steps:

1. Click Start, and then select Search.
2. In the Search Companion pane, click Other Search Options, then Printers, Computers, Or People, and finally A Printer on the Network.
3. The Find Printers dialog box will be displayed, allowing you to search for the printer using various criteria.
4. After entering the desired criteria, click Find Now.

Suggested reading previous articles:

1. Business continuity plan discussing the disaster recovery plan for business continuity
2. Router problems some common router problems
3. Internet security download a free trial for Internet security download
4. Backup hard drive for backing up hard drive data
5. Clone hard drive another way of backing up data