You can use these scripts to manage remote
printers as well as printers attached to the
computer on which they are run. You could
also specify alternative credentials with each
of these scripts. A properly configured batch
file could be used to pause all printers in
a domain or purge their print queues. For
more information about these command-line
options, see the Microsoft article “New Command-
Line Tools” at technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/4c475b4ce5ee-444c-a730-ccb7a13e03b41033.mspx?mfr=true.
Configuring Printer
Pools
A bottleneck for some organizations is
the speed at which printer hardware
outputs pages. Adding a second or
a third shared printer often doesn’t
work as a solution because it’s difficult
to balance users’ output manually.
The solution is printer pools, which
balance output across multiple print
devices.
With a printer pool, users send jobs to a single
shared printer, and that printer allocates the
job to the next available hardware device in the
pool. The primary limitation of printer pools is
that the driver used must be compatible with
all printer hardware in the pool. Generally this
means that you should use identical printer
hardware for each device in the pool, but you
can get away with using a basic printer driver
that’s compatible with many models of printers
as long as your users don’t require many printing
features.
The devices used in a printer pool should
be located in the same area, as users aren’t
notified which specific device has printed
their jobs. If you set up a printer pool with
identical devices on the first, second, and
third floors of a building, users might have to
check all three locations to find their jobs. To
configure a printer pool on an
existing shared printer, perform
the following steps:
- Start the Control Panel
Printers and Faxes applet, rightclick
the shared printer you want
to pool, and select Properties.
- On the Ports tab, select
the Enable printer pooling check
box.
- Click Add Port to add a
new port. Configure this port to
connect to an extra hardware
device.
- Keep adding ports until
all print devices in the pool are
added to the shared printer.
Setting Printer
Permissions
By default, all users in a domain are able to
print to a shared printer. Often you will want
to configure printers so that only particular
groups can print to specific printers. For example,
it might be necessary to ensure that only
the CEO and his or her administrative assistant
can print to the shared printer in the assistant’s
office. Three basic print permissions are available
for each shared printer:
- Print—This permission allows the user
or group granted it to print to the shared
printer.
- Manage Printers—This permission allows
the user or group granted it to modify
shared printer properties, including print
permissions.
- Manage Documents—Users or groups
granted this permission can pause, restart,
or delete any documents in the printer
queue, regardless of who owns them. By
default, users have the Manage Documents
permission on their own print jobs.
To configure permissions on a shared
printer, perform the following steps:
- Start the Control Panel Printers and
Faxes applet, right-click the printer, and select
Properties.
- Click the Security tab, which Figure 3 shows. Under Group or user names, remove the
Everyone group from the list by selecting it and
clicking Remove.
- Click Add to add the group or users that
will have permission to print to the shared
printer.
Setting Print Priority
Multiple shared printers can be configured to
use a single print device. By assigning each
shared printer a different priority and configuring
separate permissions on those shared
printers, it’s possible to let one group jump
the queue and print their documents before
another group. The default priority of a shared
printer is set to the lowest possible value, which
is 1. The highest possible priority value is 99.
If there are five jobs with a priority of 1 in
the queue and a job with a priority of 99 is
submitted, the job with the priority of 99 will
be bumped to the top of the queue but won’t
displace the job currently being output on the
print device even if it’s of a lower priority.
To configure a printer’s priority, perform
the following steps:
- Start the Control Panel Printers and
Faxes applet, right-click the printer, and select
Properties.
- Click the Advanced tab and adjust the
number in the Priority box to the appropriate
setting.
- To ensure that the group that should
have its documents printed most quickly is
the only one allowed to use the shared printer,
configure security appropriately as I covered in
the previous steps.
The most common mistake in configuring
print priorities is to assume that a lower
assigned priority number means documents
will print faster. Ensure that the shared printer
you configure for your organization’s executives
has a higher priority than the one you
configure for ordinary users.
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