Implementing and Conducting Administration of Resources
Windows XP Professional is limited to ten (10) simultaneous connections when files and printers are shared.Know the terminology:A printer is considered to be the software interface between the operating system and the print device driver, and controls how printing is conducted within the operating system.A print device is the hardware device that actually generates printed materials.A printer driver is the software that converts graphics commands to instructions understood by a given model of print device.A printer port is the interface, such as LPT1, between the computer and the print device.Spooling is the process of writing a print job to disk before sending it to the print device. By default, the spooler is located at %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers.A print queue is the area where print jobs are stored and sequenced as they await the print device.A print server is a computer that controls and shares the printers to which it is attached, receiving and handling print jobs requested by client computers.A print job is the document that has been sent to the printer by a client after it has been rendered into print-quality format.Many of the configurable advanced printer properties are described in Table 6.
Table 6. Configurable Advanced Printer Properties
SettingDescriptionAlways Available and Available fromEnables you to specify the hours of the day when the printer is available. For example, you can configure a printer that accepts large jobs at any time to print only between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. You can then configure another printer that prints to the same device to be available during all hours for shorter print jobs so that they can be printed rapidly. Jobs submitted outside the available hours are kept in the print queue until the available time.PriorityEnables you to assign a numerical priority to the printer, ranging from 1 (the default) to 99. Higher numbers receive higher priority.Spool Print Documents So Program Finishes Printing FasterConfigures the printer to store print jobs on the hard disk as they are generated. Select from the following:Start Printing After Last Page Is Spooled. Prevents documents from printing until completely spooled, avoiding a bottleneck with a slow application.Start Printing Immediately. This default option causes documents to be printed as rapidly as the application can generate the print job.Print Directly to the PrinterDocuments are sent to the print device without being spooled first.Hold Mismatched DocumentsThe spooler holds documents that do not match the available form until this form is loaded. Other documents that match the currently loaded form can print.Print Spooled Documents FirstPrints documents in the order in which they finish spooling, rather than the order in which they start spooling.Keep Printed DocumentsRetains printed jobs in the print spooler. Enables a user to resubmit a document from the print queue rather than from an application.Enable Advanced Printing FeaturesEnables additional options, such as page order and pages per sheet, for users who submit print jobs.Printing Defaults command buttonSelects the default orientation and order of pages being printed. Users can modify this from within most applications.Print Processor command buttonSpecifies the available print processor, which processes a document into the appropriate print job.Separator Page command buttonEnables you to specify a separator page file, which is printed at the start of a print job to identify the print job and the user who submitted it. This is useful for identifying printed output when many users share a single print device.When the wrong printer driver is installed, the output is garbled.A print device can be associated with multiple printers to enable custom settings and priorities.A printer pool is a single printer that is associated with multiple print devices to simplify usage of identical printers (or similar printers that can use the same print driver) and increase the output performance.The three Windows XP printer permissionsPrint, Manage Printers, and Manage Documentsare described in Table 7.
Table 7. Windows XP Printer Permissions
PermissionDescriptionPrintEnables users to connect to the printer to print documents and control settings for their own documents only. Users can pause, delete, and restart their own jobs only.Manage PrintersEnables users to assign forms to paper trays and set a separator page. Users can also pause, resume, and purge the printer, change printer properties and permissions, and even delete the printer itself. Also enables users to perform the tasks associated with the Manage Documents permission.Manage DocumentsEnables users to pause, resume, restart, and delete all documents. Users can also set the notification level for completed print jobs and set priority and scheduling properties for documents to be printed.You can connect to a printer via Internet Explorer with the command http://server/printer where server is the name or IP address of the print server, and printer is the name of the printer.You must have IIS installed to share printers via the web.You can access the Disk Management graphical tool by right-clicking My Computer and selecting Manage, or running Dskmgmt.msc.Disk Management enables you to change from basic to dynamic disks, format a partition, manage volumes, change drive letters, and create striped or extended volumes.Disk quotas are enabled only on NTFS-formatted partitions.You can enable disk quotas and set the properties for quotas by right-clicking a partition in My Computer or Windows Explorer, selecting Properties, and clicking the Quotas tab.Disk quotas measure files by their uncompressed size, even if they have been compressed using NTFS file compression.Fsutil.exe can enable disk quotas from the command line.The Folder Options item in the Tools menu of My Computer or Windows Explorer allows you to enable Offline Files.You cannot use both Fast User Switching and Offline Files.A user cannot synchronize Offline Files unless the user has at least the Modify permissions on the drive that stores the local cache.