Enhancements to the Print Management Console in Windows 7

The Print Management console was introduced in Windows Server 2003 R2 and was enhanced in a number of ways in Windows Vista:

• Network Printer Installation Wizard The Add Printer Wizard used in earlier versions of Windows has been replaced by the Network Printer Installation Wizard, which can automatically search the network for TCP/IP printers and Web Services for Devices (WSD) printers and add them to the print server. You can also use the wizard to manually add TCP/IP and WSD printers, add printers to an existing port, or add a new port and a new printer.
• All Drivers filter The new All Drivers filter displays details concerning all installed printer drivers for all print servers managed by Print Management. The All Drivers filter shows the version of printer drivers on multiple servers, which allows administrators to quickly and easily see which print servers must receive updated drivers (when they are updating printer drivers in their organization). The All Drivers filter also allows administrators to easily remove printer driver packages from the driver store when they are no longer needed.
• Export/import print queues and printer drivers You can now use Print Management to export the configuration of all print queues and printer drivers on a print server to a Printer Migration (*.printerExport) file, which you can then import on either the same print server or a different one. This is useful for administrators who want to back up printer configurations or migrate printers to a different print server.
• Comma-separated list in Add/Remove Servers Administrators can now quickly add multiple print servers to Print Management by specifying a comma-separated list of print servers in the Add/Remove Servers dialog box. Administrators can also copy and paste a list of servers (one per line) to the text box in the dialog box. In addition, the print servers being specified in this dialog box no longer need to be online when added to Print Management.
• More filter conditions When creating a new custom filter, administrators now have the option of specifying up to six filter conditions instead of only three as supported previously.
• Less detailed logging by default By default, only Error and Warning Events are now logged in the event logs for the Print Spooler service. If desired, however, administrators can still enable logging of Informational Events for detailed logging purposes, such as auditing print queue activity.
• Migrate Printers option By right-clicking the root node in Print Management, administrators now have the option of using the Printer Migration Wizard to export or import print queues and printer drivers to move printers to a different print server, such as for consolidation purposes.

In addition to the enhancements to the Print Management console found in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that were described earlier in this tutorial, several new enhancements can be found in the Print Management console in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. These new enhancements include the following:

• Security tab added for print servers When you open the properties of a print server found under the Print Servers node in Print Management, a Security tab is now displayed. Using this tab, you can configure default print permissions for all new printers installed on the server. For information on how to do this, see the section titled "Configuring Default Security for Print Servers" later in this tutorial.
• New custom printer filter criteria The New Printer Filter Wizard has been enhanced with additional criteria for creating custom printer filters. For more information on this enhancement, see the section titled "Creating and Using Printer Filters" later in this tutorial.
• Custom driver filters A New Driver Filter Wizard is included that can be used to filter printer drivers according to a wide range of criteria. For more information on this enhancement, see the section titled "Creating and Using Driver Filters" later in this tutorial.
• Configure Driver Isolation mode You can now configure the Driver Isolation mode as None, Shared, or Isolated using the context menu that appears when you right-click a printer driver found under the Drivers node in Print Management. For information on how to do this, see the section titled "Configuring Printer Driver Isolation Mode" later in this tutorial.
• Installing printer drivers using Windows Update The Add Printer Driver Wizard has been enhanced to enable downloading of additional printer drivers directly from the Windows Update Web site. This change also means that fewer in-box printer drivers need to be included in Windows. The Network Printer Installation Wizard has also been enhanced to provide this functionality. For more information about this feature, see the section titled "Managing Printer Drivers" later in this tutorial.

To use the Print Management console directly on a remote computer (for example, on a remote print server), connect to the computer using Remote Desktop. The remote computer must be running Windows Server 2003 R2 or later, and the Print Management console must be installed on the computer. You might need to use this approach if the computer on which you are running Print Management does not have all of the printer drivers needed to manage the printers because Print Management pulls its printer drivers from the computer on which Print Management is running.

To take advantage of the new Print Management console features in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, your computer should be running one of these versions of Windows. On Windows Server 2008 R2, the Print Management console is available from Administrative Tools when you install the Print and Document Services server role. On Windows 7, the Print Management console is available from Administrative Tools, which is found under System And Security in Control Panel.