Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Administrators Companion (Pro-Administrators Companion)

Windows makes the job of managing printers easy and flexible. You can manage printers from virtually any Windows computer using the standard Windows print queue, you can use a Web browser interface, or you can use the Windows Small Business Server 2003 command-line interface.

Managing Printers from Windows

You can manage printers shared by a Windows Small Business Server 2003 computer using any machine running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000 (including the Windows Small Business Server computer, of course). To manage printers from within Windows, double-click a printer in the Printers And Faxes folder to view and manage the print queue, as shown in Figure 11-12.

Figure 11-12: The print queue window.

You can manage the print queue using the following simple processes:

• To temporarily stop a single document from printing, right-click the selected document and choose Pause from the shortcut menu. To resume printing, right-click the document and choose Resume.

• To temporarily stop all documents from printing, choose Pause Printing from the Printer menu. To resume printing all documents, select Pause Printing a second time from the Printer menu.

• To cancel one or more print jobs, select the documents, right-click and choose Cancel from the shortcut menu. (You can also cancel print jobs by selecting them and pressing Delete.)

• To cancel all print jobs in the print queue, choose Cancel All Documents from the Printer menu.

• To restart a print job (force the document to print from the beginning again), right-click the document and choose Restart from the shortcut menu.

• To change the priority of a print job, right-click the print job, choose Properties from the shortcut menu, and then use the Priority slider to adjust the priority of the document, with 1 being the lowest priority and 99 being the highest priority.

• To specify that a print job should be printed only during a certain period, right-click the print job, choose Properties from the shortcut menu, select the Only From option, and choose the time range to allow the document to print. This feature is useful when you want to set a large document to print only during a time when you anticipate the printer to be free.

Managing Printers from a Web Browser

Windows Small Business Server 2003 lets you manage printers from any browser, provided you have Internet Printing support installed. To install Internet Printing support, double-click Add Or Remove Programs in Control Panel, click Add/ Remove Windows Components, select Application Server, click Details, select Internet Information Services (IIS), click Details, select Internet Printing, and then click OK.

Once Internet Printing support is installed, complete the following steps to manage printers using a Web browser:

1. Type the URL of the print server followed by /printers in the browser’s Address window.

2. To display a printer’s queue, click the hyperlink of the printer you want to manage.

3. Click a hyperlink under the Printer Actions heading to pause, resume, or cancel the printing of all documents in the print queue.

4. To pause or cancel a specific print job, select the option button to the left of the document, and then click the Pause hyperlink or the Cancel hyperlink under the Document Actions heading (Figure 11-13).

   Figure 11-13: The Document List page for a printer.

5. To view the properties for the printer, click the Properties hyperlink under the View heading. Note that you can only view properties in the browser; to change them, you must use the Printers And Faxes folder.

Managing Printers from a Command Line

Windows Small Business Server 2003 makes command-line administration really practical for administrators. Open a command prompt window and then use the following commands to get started. To view a list of parameters, type the command followed by /? at a command prompt, or use the Help and Support Center.

• Print Prints the specified text file to the specified printer.

• Lpr Prints the specified text file to the specified LPD print queue.

• Net print Displays information about the specified print queue or print job. Can also hold, release, or delete print jobs.

• Lpq Displays information about the specified LPD print queue.

• Net start Starts the specified service. Can be used to start or stop the spooler service.

Windows Small Business Server 2003 also comes with the following print management scripts that you can run from a command line—as long as you switch to the %windir%\system32\ folder first:

• Cscript Prnmngr.vbs Adds, deletes, or lists printers on a Windows print server

• Cscript Prnjobs.vbs Lets you view and manage the print jobs of printer shares on a Windows print server

• Cscript Prncfg.vbs Allows you to view and change the settings of printers on a Windows print server

• Cscript Prnqctl.vbs Pauses or resumes printing, clears the print queue, or prints test pages

• Cscript Prnport.vbs Administers all things related to printer ports

• Cscript Prndrvr.vbs Adds, deletes, or lists printer drivers on a Windows print server

Using Printer Migrator to Back Up or Migrate Print Servers

You can use the free Microsoft Printer Migrator utility (also called the Print Migrator) to back up, restore, or migrate print server settings including printer drivers and print queues. This utility makes moving to a new server much easier— simply back up the print server configuration on the old server and restore it to the new one—even when the servers are running different versions of Windows. (Don’t try to restore a Windows Server 2003 print server configuration on a Windows NT 4.0 server, though).

To use this program, you can download it from the Microsoft Web site. Then launch the program (Figure 11-14) and choose Backup from the Actions menu. This saves the configuration to a compressed .CAB file. Move the .CAB file to the desired server and run Printer Migrator again, this time choosing Restore from the Actions menu. Voilà! The settings and drivers are restored. (Keep in mind that if you migrate from Windows NT 4.0, you’ll want to promptly upgrade the migrated level 2 drivers to native level 3 drivers for maximum stability.)

Figure 11-14: The Printer Migrator utility.

Level 2 and Level 3 Printer Drivers

Windows Small Business Server 2003 can use two types of printer drivers: level 2 printer drivers, which are written for Windows NT 4.0; and level 3 printer drivers, which are written for the Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 families. Level 2 drivers run in kernel mode, and can destabilize the operating system or force a reboot when they crash. Level 3 drivers run in protected user mode, where unstable drivers can’t cause operating system instability (at worst they can crash the spooler service, which restarts automatically without requiring a reboot). Level 2 drivers can be used only on an upgraded system—they can’t be installed on a running Windows Small Business Server 2003 system, except by using the Printer Migrator utility.