Print Management Guide - Manage Printers
Remotely manage printers
- Double-click My Network Places,
and then locate the print server for the printers
you want to manage.
- Double-click the print server, double-click
the Printer folder icon on that
server, and then click a printer.
Important
- To facilitate stronger
network security, remote print management is
not available by default. To enable remote print
management, in Group Policy, you must enable
the Allow Print Spooler to Accept Client Connections
policy. For more information, see Related Topics.
- To facilitate stronger
network security, remote print management is
not available by default. To enable remote print
management, in Group Policy, you must enable
the Allow Print Spooler to Accept Client Connections
policy. For more information, see Related Topics.
- Change the print server, printer, or printing
preference settings as required.
Notes
- You can change printer settings
only if you have Manage Printers permission.
- If you are having trouble
finding your printer and you are logged on to a
Windows Server 2003 family domain, you can
find your printer by clicking Start,
pointing to Search, and then clicking
Printers.
- You can also drag the Printers and Faxes folder of any print server (or specific printers from any Printers and Faxes folder) to the Printers and Faxes folder on your computer. This is an easy way to manage any printer without having to search for it.
Manually publish a printer in Active Directory
- Open Active Directory Users
and Computers.
- In Name, right-click
the container object folder in which
you want to publish the printer.
- Point to New, and
then click Printer.
- Type the UNC name of the printer
that you want to publish in the directory.
Notes
- To open Active
Directory Users and Computers, click
Start, click
Control Panel, double-click
Administrative Tools,
and then double-click Active
Directory Users and Computers.
- To perform this
procedure, you must be a member of the
Print Operators group, Domain Admins
group, or the Enterprise Admins group
in Active Directory, or you must have
been delegated the appropriate authority.
As a security best practice, consider
using Run as to perform this procedure.
For more information, see
Default local groups,
Default groups, and
Using Run as.
- Group Policy settings
for printers determine whether printers
published with a print server running
Windows NT 4.0 or an earlier
operating system should be pruned if
the print server becomes unavailable.
- You can also use
the Pubprn.vbs script,
provided in the System32 folder, to
publish printers with print servers
running Windows NT 4.0 or
an older operating system.
- The printer you
want to publish must be shared.
- You must have
directory service administration rights
to publish printers.
- You must have
the Manage Printers permission for the
printer you want to share or to publish.
- You can create printer names that contain spaces, special characters, and more than eight characters. However, some clients do not recognize or correctly handle such names. The entire qualified name of a shared printer (for example, \\PRINTER2\PSCRIPT) must contain 32 or fewer characters.
Set Group Policy for printers
- Start Group Policy according to
the object you want to set printer policy
to. For more information on how to start
Group Policy, see Related Topics.
- After selecting the properties page
of the object you want to set printer
policy to, select the Group Policy node.
- If you want
to set policies that apply only
to computers, expand the
Computer Configuration
node, and then expand Administrative
Templates.
- If you want
to set policies that apply only
to users, expand the User
Configuration node, expand
Administrative Templates,
and then expand Control
Panel.
- If you want
to set policies that apply only
to computers, expand the
Computer Configuration
node, and then expand Administrative
Templates.
- Double-click Printers
to open a listing of policies.
- Double-click the printer policy
you want to set.
- On the Policy tab,
enable or disable the policy by selecting
or clearing the appropriate radio button.
With some policies, you might need to
enter additional information.
Note
- If you do not want to change the current state of the policy setting, leave it as it is (not configured) to save processing time.
Block the installation of kernel-mode printer drivers
- Open Group Policy.
- Under Local Computer Policy,
double-click Computer Configuration.
- Double-click Administrative
Templates, and then double-click
Printers.
- Right-click Disallow installation
of printers using kernel mode drivers,
and then click properties.
- On the Setting
tab, click Enabled,
and then click OK.
Important
- This policy does
not affect existing kernel-mode printer
drivers. Kernel-mode printer drivers
that were installed before you set this
policy will not be disabled or removed.
You can upgrade existing non-kernel-mode
printer drivers whether you set this
policy or not.
Notes
- To open Group
Policy so that you can edit the local
Group Policy object, click Start,
click Run, type
gpedit.msc, and then
press ENTER.
- In Windows Server 2003,
Standard Edition and Windows Server 2003,
Enterprise Edition, installation of
kernel-mode drivers is blocked by default.
In Windows XP Professional, installation
of kernel-mode drivers is not blocked
by default.
- You must click Enabled to block the installation of kernel-mode printer drivers. Clicking Not Configured or Disabled allows kernel-mode printer drivers to be installed.
Take ownership of a printer
- Open Printers and Faxes.
- Right-click the printer icon, and
then click Properties.
- Click the Security
tab, and then click Advanced.
- Click the Owner
tab, click your user account under
Change owner to, and
then click OK twice.
Notes
- To open Printers
and Faxes, click Start,
and then click Printers and
Faxes.
- If you are a member
of the Administrators group and you
want this group to take ownership of
the printer, click the Administrators
group.
- By default, the
user who installed the printer owns
it.
- A user or a member
of a group who has Manage Printers permission
for the printer can take ownership.
- By default, members
of the Administrators, Print Operators,
Server Operators, and Power Users groups
have Manage Printers permission, which
allows them to take ownership of a printer.
Track printer usage
- Open Printers and Faxes.
- Right-click the printer you want
to audit, and then click Properties.
- Click the Security
tab, click the Advanced
button, and then click the Auditing
tab.
- Click Add, and
then click the user or group whose printer
access you want to audit.
- In the Access column,
click successful and failed printing
events you want to audit, and then click
OK twice.
Notes
- To open Printers
and Faxes, click Start,
and then click Printers and
Faxes.
- Successful
means you want to audit all successful
attempts to perform this action.
- Failed
means you want to audit all failed attempts
to perform this action.
- You can view the audit information in the security log file.
Monitor print queue performance
- Open Performance.
- Click the plus sign (+)
on the Performance toolbar.
- From the Select counters
from computer list box, click
the print server computer.
- From the Performance object
list box, click Print Queue.
- Click the counters you want to monitor.
Notes
- To open Performance,
click Start, click
Control Panel, double-click
Administrative Tools,
and then double-click Performance.
- To view a detailed
explanation of a counter, select it,
and then click Explain.
- You can also add
System Monitor to any new Microsoft
Management Console (MMC).