Step-by-Step
Guide for Print Management

Step
1: Install Print Management

Step 2:
Open Print Management

Step 3:
Add and remove print servers

Step 4: View Printers

Step 5: Saving
a custom view 

Step 6: Manage
Printers

Automatically
Installing Printers to the Local Print Server

Using Print Management for Bulk Print Management
Tasks

Updating
Device Drivers

Listing
and Removing Printers in Active Directory

Exporting
a List of Printers and Displayed Columns

Deploying Printers to Users or Computers by
using Group Policy

Step 7:
Troubleshoot Printers

Using the
Printer Web Page

Setting E-mail
Notifications

Setting
Server Notifications

Printing
a Test Page

Using Scripts

Step 8: Troubleshoot
Print Management

 

Brief
Description

Print Management is a Microsoft Management
Console (MMC) snap-in that enables you to install, view, and manage
all of the printers in your organization from any computer running
Windows Server.

Overview

Print Management provides up-to-the-minute
details about the status of printers and print servers on the network.
You can use Print Management to install printer connections to a
group of client computers simultaneously. Print Management can help
you find printers that have an error condition by using filters.
It can also send e-mail notifications or run scripts when a printer
or print server needs attention. On printer models that provide
a printer Web page, Print Management has access to more data, such
as toner and paper levels, which you can manage from remote locations,
if needed.

What Is
Print Management?

Print
Management is a snap-in in Microsoft Management Console (MMC) that
enables you to install, view, and manage all of the printers in
your organization from any computer running Windows Server. Print
Management provides up-to-the-minute details about the status of
printers and print servers on the network. You can use Print Management
to install printer connections to a group of client computers simultaneously.
Print Management can help you find printers that have an error condition
by using filters. It can also send e-mail notifications or run scripts
when a printer or print server needs attention. On printer models
that provide a Web page, Print Management has access to more data,
such as toner and paper levels, which you can manage from remote
locations, if needed.

Who Should
Use Print Management?

This
guide is targeted at the following audiences:

·Print
Administrators and Help Desk professionals.

·Information
Technology (IT) planners and analysts who are evaluating the product.

·
IT planners and designers.

·Early
adopters.

Benefits
of Print Management

Print
Management saves the print administrator a significant amount of
time installing printers on client computers and managing and monitoring
printers. Tasks that can require up to 10 steps on individual computers
now can be accomplished in 2 or 3 steps on multiple computers simultaneously
and remotely.

By using
Print Management with Group Policy, you can automatically make printer
connections available to users and computers in your organization.
In addition, Print Management can automatically search for and install
network printers on the local subnet of your local print servers.

Requirements
for Print Management

Here
are some important notes about the requirements for Print Management
and the print servers that you can monitor using Print Management:

·You
can install Print Management only on computers running Windows Server.

·You
can use Print Management to monitor printers that are on print servers
running Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003,
and Windows Server operating systems.

·You
can use Print Management to monitor multiple print servers at a
time.

Print
Management can display and install printer drivers on computers
running the Microsoft® Windows NT® Server 4 operating
system, but it cannot display printer drivers that are already installed.
It is not possible to display forms on computers running Windows NT 4.

Security
Requirements

To take
full advantage of Print Management, you must be logged on as an
administrator or a member of the Administrators group on the print
servers you are managing.

It is
good practice for administrators to use an account with restrictive
permissions to perform routine, non-administrative tasks and to
use an account with broader permissions only when performing specific
administrative tasks.

You can
open Print Management and monitor any print server and printer without
administrative privileges. However, you will be unable to perform
certain functions such as adding and deleting printers and printer
drivers.

Steps
for Deploying and Operating Print Management

To deploy
and operate Print Management, complete the following tasks:

Installing
Print Management is accomplished by adding or updating the print
server role. Note that the computer on which Print Management is
installed does not need to be a print server. Do one of the following:

·If
the print server role is not installed, perform the following procedure.

To install the print server
role

1.   Click
Start, point to
All Programs, point to
Administrative Tools, and
then click Manage Your Server.

2.   Click
Add or remove a role.

3.   In
the Configure Your Server Wizard, click
Next to get to the
Server Role page.

4.   On
the Server Role page, click
Print Server, and then
click Next twice. Follow
the steps in the wizard to complete the installation.

·If
you are running an earlier version of a Windows server operating
system that has the print server role and at least one shared printer
already installed, perform the following procedure.

To update the print server
role

1.   Click
Start, point to
All Programs, point to
Administrative Tools, and
then click Manage Your Server.

2.   Click
Update this role.

3.   In
the Print Server Role Wizard, click
Next.

4.   Follow
the steps in the wizard to complete the installation.

After
you install both Windows Server and Print Management, then open
Print Management. If you want to use Print Management on a computer
in another location by using Remote Desktop, the remote computer
must have Windows Server and Print Management installed.

To open Print Management

·Click
Start, point to
All Programs, point to
Administrative Tools, and
then click Print Management.

You can
add both a local print server and network print servers to Print
Management. Note that the computer on which Print Management is
installed does not need to be a print server.

Adding a Print Server

If the
server on which you use Print Management is also a print server
and you want to manage the printers that it hosts by using Print
Management, use the following procedure to add the print server
to Print Management.

To add print servers to Print Management

1.   In
the Print Management tree, right-click
Print Management, and then
click Add/Remove Servers.

 

2.   In
the Add/Remove Servers
dialog box, under Specify print
server, in Add server,
do one of the following:

·Type
the name.

·Click
Browse to locate and select
the print server.

3.   Click
Add to List.

4.   Add
as many print servers as you want, and then click
OK.

Note

You can add the local
server on which you are working by clicking
Add the Local Server.

To remove print servers from Print Management

1.   In
the Print Management tree, right-click
Print Management, and then
click Add/Remove Servers.

2.   In
the Add/Remove Servers
dialog box, under Print servers,
select one or more servers, and click
Remove.

The Print
Management tree contains three places where printer information
is stored: Custom Printer Filters,
Print Servers, and
Deployed Printers. The
Custom Printer Filters folder contains
the All Printers object, which
contains a dynamic view of all of the printers on all of the servers
available for managing by Print Management. All of the custom views,
or filters, of printers that you create are stored in
Custom Printer Filters.

The network
printer servers that you add are stored in
Print Servers. Every printer server
automatically is given four objects that serve as filters for information
about a server:

·Drivers

·Forms

·Ports

·Printers

To quickly
access the Print Server Properties
dialog box, right-click the Drivers,
Forms, or
Ports objects, and then click
Manage Drivers,
Manage Forms, or
Manage Ports.

Deployed Printers contains a list
of all of the printers located in Print Management that are managed
by Group Policy objects. For more information about managing printers
by using Group Policy, see

Deploying Printers to Users or Computers by
using Group Policy later in this guide.

Offline Print Servers

If a
server goes offline, the printer server icon will change. You will
be able to unable to manage the Drivers, Forms, Ports, and Printers
objects until the server comes back online.

Printer Details

The details
for each printer display in the results pane of the snap-in console.
The results pane contains columns with values such as the printer
name, queue status, jobs in the queue, printer location, and driver
version. You can add and remove columns to show only certain characteristics
of the printers, and you can filter among all the print servers
in your organization to display only printers with specific criteria
in the columns. Figure 1 shows both a filtered view and the resulting
columns.

In any
view, you can sort on one criterion by clicking on the heading of
one of the columns.

Figure 1
A view of printers where “Queue Status” does not equal “Ready”

 

You can
also show an extended view, which shows more detail about the queue
and provides access to the printer’s Web page, if one is available.
You can add, remove, and sort columns in extended view.

Adding and Removing Columns

When
you click the Printers object in
each printer server or an object in the
Custom Printer Filters folder,
you can view the columns in the results pane that contain printer
details.

To add and remove columns

1.   In
the Print Management tree, under a print server, right-click
Printers, point to
View, and then click
Add/Remove Columns.

2.   In
the Add/Remove Columns
dialog box, select the name of the column, and then click
Add or
Remove.

Showing Extended View

Extended
view displays beneath the columns in the right pane, separated by
a splitter bar. Extended view is useful when you want more information
about the status of a print job, its owner, the number of pages,
the size of the job, when it was submitted, its port, its priority,
and so on.

In addition,
when the printer has a Web page, extended view displays a
Printer Web Page tab. The Web page
provides details about the physical properties of the printer and
specifications, and sometimes allows remote administration. For
more information, see
Using the
printer Web page later in this guide.

To show extended view

·In
the Print Management tree, under any print server, right-click
Printers, and then click
Show Extended View.

Note

To display or hide
columns in extended view, select a printer. On the
Jobs tab, right-click the
column heading row, and then click the name of the column
that you want to display or hide.

Filtering Views

You can
use the filtering feature to create custom views of printers, for
example, it might be helpful to filter for printers with certain
error conditions or those printers in a group of buildings regardless
of the print server they use. Each view is dynamic, so the data
is always up to date. All filtered views are stored in the
Custom Printer Filters folder in
the Print Management tree.

An example
of a filter that may be useful is shown in Figure 2. This custom
view displays all printers on the specified printer server that
have a queue status other than Ready and where there are one or
more jobs in the print queue.

Figure 2
Using filter criteria to create a custom view of printers

 

For every
filtered view that you set up, you have the option of setting notifications
by e-mail or choosing to run a script. To learn how to use these
options, see
Troubleshoot Printers later
in this guide.

To set up and save a filtered view

1.   In
the Print Management tree, right-click the
Custom Printer Filters
folder, and then click Add New
Printer Filter. This will launch the
New Printer Filter Wizard.

2.   On
the Printer Filter Name and Description
wizard page, type a name and optional description for the
printer filter. The name will appear in the
Custom Printer Filters
folder in the Print Management tree.

3.   In
Description, type an optional
description.

4.   To
display the number of printers that satisfy the conditions
of a filter, select the Display
the total number of printers next to the name of the printer
filter check box.

5.   Click
Next.

6.   On
the Define a printer filter
wizard page, do the following:

a.   In
the Field list, click the
print queue or printer status characteristic.

b.   In
the Condition list, click
the condition.

c.   In
the Value box, type a value.

d.   Continue
adding criteria until your filter is complete, and then
click Next.

7.   On
the Set Notifications (Optional)
wizard page, do one or both of the following:

·To
set an e-mail notification, select the
Send e-mail notification
check box, and type one or more recipient and sender e-mail
addresses. An SMTP server must be specified to route the
message. Use the format account@domain
and semicolons to separate multiple accounts.

·To
set a script to run, select the
Run script check box, and
then type the path where the script file is located. To
add more arguments, type them in the
Additional Arguments box.

8.   Click
Finish.

Step 5: Saving a custom
view

If you
use customized views of Print Management, it might be useful to
save one or more views. Print Management files are *.msc files.

The following
are Print Management settings that you can customize for viewing:

·Print
servers added

·Custom
views (filters) and notifications

·Column
preferences

You can
use Print Management to manage all of the printers in your enterprise,
including printers in branch offices. You can use the same interface
to control how printers are shared, update drivers, and control
print queues. It is unnecessary to navigate to the individual folders
for each printer on each printer server.

By using
Print Management in conjunction with the Configure Your Server Wizard
and Terminal Services, you can automatically search for and install
network printers on a local print server in branch offices. This
is helpful when branch office personnel are not trained in administrative
duties. You can deploy a printer to an entire group of people or
make a printer available to every computer in a particular room.
For more information, see

Deploying Printers to Users or Computers by
using Group Policy later in this guide.

As the
administrator on the local print server, you can add and remove
printers. Print Management can automatically detect all printers
located on the same subnet as the print server, install the appropriate
printer drivers, set up the queues, and share the printers. Unless
a printer driver cannot be found, no intervention is needed.

You need
to have administrator permissions on the computer where the printers
will be added.

If you
want to automatically detect printers for a branch office or another
location beyond the subnet of your server, use Remote Desktop to
log on to the remote print server and start the process from that
computer. You need to have administrator permissions on the computer
where the printers will be added. Once you connect to the remote
server by using Remote Desktop, you can search for network printers
by starting Print Management or by running
\Windows\pmcsnap\fnprinters.exe
from the command line.

To add network printers to the local printer server automatically

·In
the Print Management tree, right-click
ServerName
(local), click Automatically
Add Network Printers, and then click
Start to automatically
locate and install printers found on this server’s local
subnet.

Note

You may be prompted
to specify which driver you want to install for a printer,
but otherwise, the process is automatic.

Bulk
operations can be performed on all the printers on a particular
server or all the printers under a particular filter.

The following
is a list of the tasks that are possible to perform on multiple
printers simultaneously:

·Pause
printing

·Resume
printing

·Cancel
All Jobs

·List
in Directory

·Remove
from Directory

·Delete

Printer
driver details are shown separately for each server that you have
added to the Print Management snap-in console. By default, the driver
name, driver version, environment, and provider columns are visible.
You can add columns to show more details such as the config file
path, data file path, default datatype, driver file path, manufacturer,
and so on.

You can
export the list of details to a text file for use outside of Print
Management.

To manage device drivers

1.   In
the Print Management tree, under the appropriate print server,
right-click Drivers, and
then click Manage Drivers.

2.   Do
one or more of the following:

·To
add a printer driver, click Add,
and then complete the Add Printer
Driver Wizard.

·To
remove a printer driver, select a driver from the list,
and then click Remove.

·To
reinstall a printer driver, select a driver, and then click
Reinstall.

·To
view the details for a printer driver, select the driver,
and then click Properties. 

Listing
printers in the Active Directory® directory service makes it
easier for users to locate and install printers. After you install
printers on a printer server, you can use Print Management to list
them in Active Directory.

In fact,
you can list more than one printer simultaneously. You may want
to set up a filter to show all of the printers to list or remove,
so that you can easily select all of the printers at the same time.

To list or remove printers in Active Directory

1.   In
the Print Management tree, under the appropriate print server,
click Printers.

2.   In
the results pane, right-click the printer you want to list
or remove from the directory service, and then click
List in Directory or
Remove from Directory.

Exporting a List of Printers and
Displayed Columns

You can
export a text file containing the data available on any
Printers object, which includes
the currently displayed columns.

To export a list of printers

1.   In
the Print Management tree, under the appropriate print server,
right-click Printers, then
click Export List.

2.   In
the Export List dialog
box, in File name, type
the name of the file, and then click
Save.

Deploying Printers to Users or
Computers by using Group Policy

Print
Management can be used with Group Policy to automatically add printer
connections to a computer’s Printers and Faxes folder.

Note

Before
the Deploy Printer Connection feature will work, the schema needs
to be updated. For more information about how to update the schema,
see “Upgrading from a Windows 2000 domain” on the

Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=52146).
For more information about schema updates, see the

Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=51166).

To do
this, you use the Deploy with Group Policy
dialog box to automatically add a printer connection setting to
an existing Group Policy object (GPO) in Active Directory. When
Group Policy processing runs on client computers, the printer connection
settings are applied to the users or computers associated with the
GPO. Printers you deploy by using this method appear in the Deployed
Printers object of Print Management tree when the print server they
are connected to is being monitored. You will have Read Access on
the GPO to which the printers are being deployed.

This
method of installing a printer is useful in a laboratory, classroom,
or branch office setting where every computer in the room or office
needs access to the same printer. It is also useful in large organizations,
where computers and printers are often separated by function, workgroup,
or department, such as marketing or human resources.

A printer
connection that has been installed by using a per-user connection
is available to users on any computer the user logs on to in the
network. A printer connection that has been installed by using a
pushed per-machine connection appears in the printers and faxes
folder, ready for use by any user the next time they log on to that
computer.

To enable
this feature, you must use a utility called PushPrinterConnections.exe.

Note

The PushPrinterConnections.exe
utility is only needed on computers running Windows 2000, Windows XP,
and Windows Server client computers.

Important

In order
for the PushPrinterConnections.exe utility to work, you must update
your Active Directory schema with the Windows Server changes. For
more information on these schema updates, see the

Microsoft Web site
(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?linkid=51166).

First,
add the PushPrinterConnections.exe utility to a machine startup
script (for per-machine connections) or to a user logon script (for
per-user connections). The utility reads the settings made by the
GPO containing the printer setting and adds the printer connection.

It is
a good idea to use the same GPO for both the printer connection
settings and the PushPrinterConnections.exe computer startup or
user logon script. This ensures that only users (or computers) that
receive the printer connection settings will run the PushPrinterConnections.exe
utility.

Note

Only
per-user printer connections are supported on computers running
Windows 2000. Either Windows XP or Windows Server 2003
is required for per-machine printer connections.

Important

You must
have write access to the Group Policy object to use it to manage
printers. Before you install printers by using Group Policy, you
must have a GPO for your printer connections settings that is assigned
to the appropriate users and computers. You can use the Group Policy
Object Editor or Active Directory Users and Computers to create
a GPO.

For more
information about using Group Policy, see “Management with
the Group Policy Management Console” on the

Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?linkid=22814).

To install printers to groups of users or computers by using Group
Policy

1.   In
the Print Management tree, under the appropriate print server,
click Printers.

2.   In
the results pane, right-click the printer you want to deploy,
and then click Deploy with Group
Policy.

3.   In
the Deploy with Group Policy
dialog box, click Browse,
and then choose a Group Policy object.

4.   Click
OK.

5.   To
assign the printer connection setting to the GPO, do one
or both of the following:

·As
a per-user setting, select the
The users that this GPO applies to (per user) check
box.

·As
a per-machine setting, select the
The computers that this GPO applies
to (per machine) check box.

6.   Click
Add.

7.   Repeat
steps 3 to 6 to add the printer connection setting to another
GPO.

8.   Click
OK.

To use the PushPrinterConnections.exe file

1. USing
Group Policy Management console (Gpmc.msc), right-click
the GPO with your printer connections settings and click
Edit.

2.   In
the Group Policy Object Editor tree, navigate to one following
locations:

·If
the printer connections are deployed per-machine, go to
Computer Configuration,
Windows Settings,
Scripts (Startup/Shutdown).

·If
the printer connections are deployed per-user, go to
User Configuration,
Windows Settings,
Scripts (Logon/Logoff).

3.   Right-click
Startup or
Logon, and then click
Properties.

4.   In
the Logon Properties or
Startup Properties dialog
box, click Show Files.

5.   Copy
the PushPrinterConnections.exe file to this location and
then close the window.

6.   In
the Logon Properties or
Startup Properties dialog
box, click Add.

7.   Type
PushPrinterConnections.exe
in the Script Name box.

8.   If
you want to enable logging, type
–log in the
Script Parameters box.
Log files are written to %windir%\Temp\PpcMachine.log (for
per-computer connections) and %temp%\PpcUser.log (for per-user
connections) on the computer on which the policy is applied.

9.   Click
OK.

Note

For per-computer connections,
the printer connections will be added when the client computer
restarts. For per-user connections, the printer connections
will be added when the user logs on.

Note

If you remove the
printer connection settings from the GPO, the PushPrinterConnections.exe
will remove the corresponding printers from the client computer
on the next restart or user logon.

Step 7: Troubleshoot Printers

Print
Management has several features that may help you identify and resolve
printer problems—even in remote locations. Setting pre-defined filters
lets you easily find all printers that are not in Ready status or
that have a backed up queue. Many devices, regardless of manufacturer,
provide rich status information, which is readily available to Print
Management. By closely monitoring the printers in your organization,
you may even be able to resolve problems before they happen, such
as identifying when paper or toner is low.

You can
set up e-mail notifications to alert you when a printer needs attention.
This is especially useful when you have printers at multiple locations
with different people responsible for managing them. By using an
automated system to notify you when a printer or printer server
is down, the problem may be resolved sooner and less attention may
need to be focused on the monitoring program.

Print
Management must be running for notifications to be sent or for scripts
to run.

Using the Printer Web Page

Multifunction
printers sometimes have a Web page that is accessible though extended
view in Print Management. The functionality on the printer Web page
will vary depending upon both the model and the manufacturer of
the printer. Some multifunction printers provide remote functions,
the amount of paper in each tray, and the toner level. You may be
able to delete print jobs or upgrade device drivers from the printer
Web pages.

Note

If the
printer is down due to a networking error, the printer Web page
cannot be displayed.

When
you create a view, or filter for specific printer criteria, you
have the option of sending an automatic e-mail notification to someone
when the conditions of the filter are met. This is useful for resolving
printer problems, particularly in an organization with multiple
buildings and administrators.

For example,
you can set up a view of all printers managed by a particular print
server where the status does not equal Ready. Then, if a printer
changes from the Ready status to another status, the administrator
could receive a notification e-mail from Print Management.

To send
these notifications, you must specify that the SMTP server forward
the messages.

To set e-mail notifications

1.   In
the Print Management tree, do one of the following:

·To
set a notification on an existing filtered view, right-click
the custom printer filter, and then click
Properties. Click the
Notification tab.

·To
set a notification on a new filtered view, right-click the
Custom Printer Filters
folder, and then click Add New
Printer Filter. Follow the instructions until you
reach the Set Notifications
page.

2.   Select
the Send e-mail notification
check box.

3.   Enter
the following information:

·In
Recipient e-mail address(es),
type the e-mail address of the recipient. Use the format
account@domain.
Use semicolons to separate multiple accounts.

·In
Sender e-mail address,
type the e-mail address of the sender. Use the format
account@domain.

·In
SMTP Server, type the host
name of the SMTP server that will forward the e-mail notifications.

·In
Message, type a text message
describing the conditions of the printer problem.

In addition
to setting notifications on a custom set of printers, you can set
notifications on printer server objects. For example, if the server
is offline, or the spooler goes down, an e-mail notification can
be sent. To do this, right-click a print server object, click
Set Notifications, and then follow
steps 2 and 3 in “To set e-mail notifications.”

You can
quickly print a test page from any printer in your organization.
This is helpful for testing a printer, particularly when you are
not in the same building.

To print a test page

1.   In
the Print Management tree, click the appropriate print server.

2.   In
the results pane, right-click the printer for which you
want a test page, and then click
Print Test Page.

When
you create a view, or filter for specific printer criteria, you
have the option of running a script when the conditions of the filter
are met. Script notifications are defined in the
Set Notifications dialog box. Setting
script notifications are useful for resolving printer problems and
troubleshooting.

For example,
you could automatically run a script to restart a spooler when printers
go offline. You could also automatically run a script that prints
a test page. The arguments are: UserSpecifiedArgumentsServerOfflineServerName

Scripts
can be written in Visual Basic® Script (.vbs) or any scripting
language available on the computer. The script has to be on the
computer with Print Management. The script should be running with
your credentials and you need to have the permissions to do whatever
it is that you want the script to do.

An example
of a command that you might use in a script is to start the print
spooler:

net
start spooler

If you
are using a firewall with Print Management, some or all of the printers
on a network print server may not be displayed. To solve the problem,
add File and Printer Sharing to the list of exceptions in the firewall
software configuration. For example, in Windows Firewall the setting
is on the Exceptions tab.

To display all of the printers on a network print server when using
a firewall

1.   Once
File and Printer Sharing has been added, click
Edit.

2.   In
the Edit a Service dialog
box, click Change scope.

3.   In
the Change Scope dialog
box, select Any computer (including
those on the Internet).