Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Connecting Users to Network Printers

All these printer options are fantastic, but right now no one is using them. What are the options for getting the clients connected?

If the user knows the server that the printer is hosted on, he can just type the server name in the Run box or browse the network, and all shared printers are listed.

The user can then right-click a printer and select Connect, which connects the computer to the printer. If the driver is not local to the client, he is prompted to click the Install Driver button, the printer is mapped and ready to print.

This method is great, and the user can browse through servers to find the printer he wants, but now imagine you have 1,000 servers, 20 of which are print servers. Even assuming you have a good naming scheme, that is still a lot of browsing. This is why you list printers in the directory.

For an end-user to add a printer, go to the Printers control panel applet on the client computer and select Add Printer, which launches the Add Printer Wizard. Two options are displayed in Windows Vista: adding a local printer or adding a network, wireless, or Bluetooth printer. Select the latter option for a network printer and click Next.

By default, the Add Printer Wizard searches the local subnet of the client for network printers and any shared printers that are available, which is a big improvement over the XP experience. However, if the printer desired is not there, the user can click The Printer That Isn't Listed button, which takes him to a dialog that allows more detail to be entered.

Users enter the share name of a printer in the format of \\ <server>\<share>. To search the AD, they can select the Find a Printer in the Directory, Based on Location or Feature option and click Next.

A search dialog for the AD is displayed. Using this dialog, they enter parts of the printer name or location via the Printers tab or search for printers with specific features via the Features tab.

After the printer is found, the printer can be connected to the client and used.

The process is similar with Windows XP clients. The user launches the Printers and Faxes interface from the Start menu and runs the Add a Printer task, which launches the Add Printer Wizard. The user is prompted for a local or network printer. Select the A Network Printer, or a Printer Attached to Another Computer option.

The user is then prompted to find a printer in the directory and enter the name of the printer in the \\<share name>\<printer> format. If she is using Internet Printing, enter the URL.

The rest of the process is the same as Windows Vista; the printer is selected and added automatically.

If you want to access a printer from the command line, you can map an LPT port to the network printer. For example, in the following command, you map LPT2 to a network printer:

C:\>net use lpt2 "\\savtstdc01\HP Officejet Pro L7680 - LabA"
The command completed successfully.

Notice that the printer share is in double quotes because the name has spaces. You can then copy files to LPT2: and it prints to the network printer. You can add /persistent:yes at the end of the command to map the printer at each logon. To delete a mapped printer, use the net use lptn /del command.

If you are a nonadministrator, you must map an LPT port that is not physically mapped on the hardware. For instance, LPT1 is normally mapped to the parallel port, and so a normal user does not have permission to remap a port that is assigned to a local parallel port. However, an administrator can do this. Another option is to use the print command without mapping, which uses this format:

Print /D:\\<print server>\<share> <full path and name of file to print>

Hopefully, your days of command-line printing are in the past, however. Group policy can be used to restrict to which print server users can print by enabling the Point and Print Restrictions policy, which is found under User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Control Panel, Printers Policy section. You can then select options so that users can print only to specific servers, to set actions for elevation during driver installations and for driver updating.

After the group policy object is configured, make sure it is linked to a domain, site, or OU that matches the users that should be restricted.