Print Services
Objectives Understand Print Server terms and concepts Understand how printing works Print Server Considerations Printer Hardware Considerations Install Print Server Install Local Printer Install Network Connected Printer
Objectives Connection to a Shared Printer at Client Deploying Printers using Group Policies Deploying Printers using scripts Point and Print Functionality Use Print Management to Manage multiple print servers Use Print Management to move printers and their queues
Print Server A device which manages communication between the printer and the print clients In most cases a printer server is a computer running the Windows OS Windows OS functioning as Print Server provides many services: Provides drivers to clients (v3) Stores documents that are spooled for printing Maintains associated print queue Provides security and auditing of printer access
V3 Printer Drivers Two main data types for print drivers Enhanced metafile format (EMF) Uses Printer Control Language (PCL) EMF documents are sent to print server with minimal processing and then further processed on the print server RAW RAW is most commonly used with PostScript page description language. RAW documents are fully processed on client before being sent to print server and aren’t modified by print server
Standard EMF Printing Process
Standard RAW Printing Process
V4 Printer Drivers Available beginning with Windows 8 and Server 2012 If a printer share is configured with a V4 Printer driver (class drivers), the client does not get the driver from the server. When connecting to a shared printer that uses a V4 driver, the corresponding V4 driver from the client’s local datastore is installed Windows 8 & 10 have class drivers, Windows 7 does not. If the client doesn’t have a driver, a compatibility driver is used If Windows 7 clients exist on the network, it might be best to still use V3 drivers.
V4 Printer Drivers The v4 printer driver model was designed to make sharing easier and more efficient by eliminating the need to manage drivers across processor architectures.
Sizing Print Server Hardware and Optimizing Configuration Configuration considerations of Print Server: Operating System CPU RAM Disk Space