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Lesson 1: Understanding Printer Administration

After your printing network is set up, you will be responsible for administering it. You can administer network printers at the print server or remotely over the network. In this lesson, you will learn about the four major types of tasks that are involved with administering network printers: managing printers, managing documents, troubleshooting printers, and performing tasks that require the Manage Printers permission. In this lesson, you will also learn that before you can administer printers, you must know how to access them and control access to them.

After this lesson, you will be able to

• Identify the tasks and requirements for administering a printer.
• Gain access to printers for administration.
• Assign printer permissions to user accounts and groups.

Estimated lesson time: 20 minutes

Managing Printers

One of the most important aspects of printer administration is managing printers. Managing printers includes the following tasks:

• Assigning forms to paper trays
• Setting a separator page
• Pausing, resuming, and canceling documents on a printer
• Redirecting documents
• Taking ownership of a printer

A second major aspect of printer administration is managing documents. Managing documents includes the following tasks:

• Pausing and resuming a document
• Setting notification, priority, and printing time
• Deleting a document

A third major aspect of printer administration is troubleshooting printers. Troubleshooting printers means identifying and resolving all printer problems. The types of problems you need to troubleshoot include the following:

• Handling printers that are off or offline
• Handling printers that are out of paper, ink, or toner
• Helping users who can't print or who can't print correctly
• Helping users who can't access a printer

The following tasks involved with administering printers require the Manage Printers permission:

• Adding and removing printers
• Sharing printers
• Taking ownership of a printer
• Changing printer properties or permissions

By default, members of the Administrators and Power Users groups have the Manage Printers permission for all printers.

Accessing Printers

You can gain access to printers for administration by using the Printers window (shown in Figure 13.1), which you open by selecting the Start button, pointing to Settings, and clicking the Printers system folder. You can perform all administrative tasks by gaining access to the printer from the Printers window, as follows:

1. Click the Start button, point to Settings, and then click Printers.
2. In the Printers window, select the appropriate printer icon.
3. On the File menu

• Click Open to open the printer's window to perform print document tasks.
• Click Properties to open the Properties dialog box to change printer permissions or to edit Active Directory information about the printer.

Figure 13.1 Accessing printers using the Printers window

Windows 2000 allows you to control printer use and administration by assigning permissions. By using printer permissions, you can control who can use a printer. You can also assign printer permissions to control who can administer a printer and the level of administration, which can include managing printers and managing documents.

For security reasons, you might need to limit user access to certain printers. You can also use printer permissions to delegate responsibilities for specific printers to users who are not administrators. Windows 2000 provides three levels of printer permissions: Print, Manage Documents, and Manage Printers. Table 13.1 lists the capabilities of each level of permission.

Table 13.1 Printing Capabilities of Windows 2000 Printer Permissions

You can allow or deny printer permissions. Denied permissions always override allowed permissions. For example, if you select the Deny check box next to Manage Documents for the Everyone group, no one can manage documents, even if you granted this permission to another user account or group. This is because all user accounts are members of the Everyone group.

Assigning Printer Permissions

By default, Windows 2000 assigns the Print permission for each printer to the built-in Everyone group, allowing all users to send documents to the printer. You can also assign printer permissions to users or groups, as follows:

1. Open the Properties dialog box for the printer, click the Security tab, and then click Add.
2. In the Select Users, Computers, Or Groups dialog box, select the appropriate user account or group, and then click Add. Repeat this step for all users or groups that you are adding.
3. Click OK.
4. On the Security tab, shown in Figure 13.2, select a user account or group, and then do one of the following:

• Click the permissions in the bottom part of the dialog box that you want to assign.
• Click Advanced, assign additional printer permissions that don't fit into the predefined permissions on the Security tab, and then click OK.

The bottom part of the dialog box shows the permissions granted to the user or group selected in the upper part.

5. Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

Figure 13.2 Assigning printer permissions

You can change the default printer permissions that Windows 2000 assigned, or that you previously assigned for any user or group, as follows:

1. Open the Printers window.
2. Right-click the printer and choose Properties.
3. On the Security tab of the Properties dialog box for the printer, select the appropriate user account or group, and then do one of the following:

• Click the permissions that you want to change for the user or group.
• Click Advanced to modify additional printer permissions that don't fit into the predefined permissions on the Security tab.

4. Click OK.

In this lesson, you learned that administering printers involves four major types of tasks: managing printers, managing documents, troubleshooting printers, and performing tasks that require the Manage Printers permission. You gain access to printers for administration by selecting the Start button, pointing to settings, and selecting the Printers system folder.

You also learned that Windows 2000 allows you to control printer use and administration by assigning permissions. You might need to limit access to certain printers—for example, a printer used to print checks. You can also use printer permissions to delegate responsibilities for specific printers to users who are not administrators.