Posted by arlene

All versions of Windows server operating systems support multiple printing protocols. In this section you will learn how to install and configure printers using Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Although Windows XP Professional is a client operating system, it is included here because it can provide print services in a small network (such as the SOHO environment) where a server operating system is not needed. Windows Server 2003 operating systems use similar or the same wizard dialog boxes as used by Windows 2000 computers.

Also, you’ll learn what some of the prompts mean and how you can improve printer performance on the network.

Windows NT 4.0

To begin adding a new printer, select Add Printer from the Printers folder that you find under My Computer. The Add Printer Wizard asks you a few simple questions.

Where Will the Printer Be Managed?

This first question can be confusing if you are not familiar with Windows NT 4.0 printing. These are the available choices:

• My Computer
• Network Printer Server

The wizard is not asking you where the printer will be connected. For example, if you select My Computer, this does not mean that the physical printer device will be connected to the LPT1: port on your server (although it might be). Instead, the prompt is asking you where the printer will be managed. If you select My Computer, the necessary drivers for the printer are loaded on the local computer and are responsible for any settings or other management functions for the printer on this computer.

If you select Network Printer Server, the wizard enables you to connect to a printer that is already on the network or is being offered by another server (such as a Unix host). The wizard then prompts you to load a driver for the printer, unless one is already loaded on the server that hosts the printer. When you connect to a printer using this method, you can send print jobs to the printer but you cannot manage its properties.

Port Selection

If you chose My Computer as the place where the printer will be managed, the next wizard prompt asks for the name of the port to which the printer is attached. This can be a local port, such as LPT1:, LPT2:, or even COM1:, and so on. You can select to have the printer set up to send the print job to a file instead, although this is a feature more useful for tasks such as capturing the output from an application that doesn’t provide such a function.

If you want this logical printer to manage documents that are sent to a printer elsewhere on the network, select Add Port, and then supply the necessary configuration information that the wizard needs in order to create a port for the printer. The following kinds of ports are supported under Windows NT Server 4.0:

• Digital Equipment Corporation Network Port
• Hewlett-Packard Network Port
• Lexmark DLC Network Port
• Lexmark TCP/IP Network Port
• LPR Port

Highlight the port you want to create, and then click the New Port button. Depending on the choice you make, a dialog box appears to prompt you for more information for the specific kind of port you want to create.

Fill in the name you want to give the port, and then select the 12-digit LAN (MAC) hardware address that corresponds to the address of the printer. You can get the address for the HP printer by printing a self-test page, or, if you’re really bored, by going through the printer’s I/O configuration menus. If no addresses appear on this dialog box, the printer might be powered off or there might be a network error preventing the server from obtaining it. If you click the Options or Timers button, you can customize this printer port further by specifying such things as the logging level that will be performed (information, warning, error) and values for timers associated with the DLC protocol.

Selecting Printer Drivers

After you complete the dialog box for the port you want to use and return to the main dialog box, click the Next button to bring up a dialog box from which you can specify the manufacturer and type of printer. This information is used to determine which drivers Windows NT needs to load for this printer. You also can click the Have Disk button if your printer is not listed and you have a driver from the manufacturer that you can use.

Because the purpose of a print server is to accept print jobs from clients, be sure to load drivers for each kind of operating-system client on the network that needs access to this printer. When the client prints the first time, it downloads the driver from the server so that the print job can be rendered into the correct format for the particular printer.

Giving the Printer a Name

Next, the wizard prompts you to enter a name to use for the printer. This name won’t be used as the printer share name; instead, it’s a descriptive name for the printer. Use the radio buttons at the bottom of the dialog box to set this printer as the default for this server if applicable. This does not set the printer as the default for users who connect to it over the network; it sets the printer as the default that shows up when you send print jobs from applications while you are logged in to this server locally.

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