Change name of a printer

[LadyH]

How do you change the name of a W2K printer? We have a W2K system (fat32) connecting to a Novell Network and want to change the name of the printers installed to make them easier to identify. Any thoughts?? Right clicking on the printer doesn't work and neither does "File, Rename." I would prefer not to edit the registry but if that is the only way, we'll have to consider it. Thanks....
Heather


pcheather@yahoo.com

 

[butchrecon]

Right click on it or FILE>RENAME should work fine. If it is not working then the problem is access permissions. You will need to be logged on as a LOCAL ADMINISTRATOR in order to change the name of the printer. If you are logged on as an administrator then find out what kind of system or user policies are in place. James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[LadyH]

Nothing has been set up on the system for user or system policies and I am logged in as the local administrator. We have tried this on about 7 different machines set up by 7 different people with the same problem.

pcheather@yahoo.com

 

[butchrecon]

Are you logging on with a user name or using the built in Administrator account. Try the built in admin account and let me know. James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[LadyH]

Logging in as the built in administrator account. Even logging in as a created administrator account has the same result....


pcheather@yahoo.com

 

[butchrecon]

Your logged on as administrator with no policies in place. Yet you still cannot change the Printer name. You said this is happening on all the PCs you have set up? How are you setting them up? James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[french01]

LadyH,

Are your print devices networked through the Novel network and controlled from the Novel server? or connected to and shared from the W2k box.

Changing the name that is displayed over the wire to the end user needs to be done from the contolling system.

I suspect that you may need to modify the print queue names on the Novel side.

 

[LadyH]

nothing special about the way its getting set up, straight from the CD, no changes other then the names. like I said, we've all installed the OS, i haven't watched any of them but one and we all have the same issue. The MMC has no poilicies or setting changes on any of the systems and they are all a mix of NTFS and FAT32....

pcheather@yahoo.com

 

[LadyH]

Why should I have to change at the server side? Is this just a change from W95/98 to W2K? Its not a huge issue, but takes away the ease for some users to select the printer they want to use, users should be able to name the printer what they want, right?
And yes, the printers are on a Novell box, not W2K. I've never had this problem on systems that were 95/98.


pcheather@yahoo.com

 

[butchrecon]

Nor should you have that problem with Win2K Pro. You do not need to change the names on the server end. You should be able to change the name in Win2K with ease. I do not have any more Ideas. I do not believe that the printers being networked on a Novell server should cause this problem. As I stated All you are doing is changing the name.
Do the printers show online in windows? Have you tried uninstalling the printers and then reinstalling them and putting in the name you want then? James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[LadyH]

yes, tried that. If we install the printer local, it works fine. As soon as it is changed to print to the network, you can't change it. So, there it is.....Its not a huge issue, but it baffled us and so I wanted other opinions....thanks for the input...
heather

pcheather@yahoo.com

 

[RH610]

Have same circumstances/issue. The Microsoft Knowledge Base said "The printers assume the names of the Netware print queues and cannot be changed." The article actually said "This is not a bug. It is a feature of Windows2000 Pro." I was not about to go renaming all of our Netware print queues, so we have just given all our users a translations sheet that tells them what printer it really is when they see a print queue name; believe it or not.

Perhaps you will be smart enough to know how to change this via the registry, but I am not smart enough or brave enough. It may be the only way to do it, though, if it is even possible that way.