Printing directly to IP but drivers from AD??

[STU1979]

I have a network here with workstations set to directly print to the HP printers. This is a pain because I have to go round to every workstation to up dates drivers and settings. Does anyone know if there is a method where Active Directory will advertise the printer for you and supply you with the drivers but not act as a print server, ie so the client prints straight to the device over IP but pulls it the drivers and settings from AD?

Any ideas would be great!

Cheers

 

[gazzanewpy]

So you want a server to act as a Print Server without actually being a pront server (ie handing out the drivers, upates, etc without actually controlling printing)?

As far as I am concerned this is not possible since each IP printer is its own print server and I must ask why you don't want acetral control point for all printers, alertng you to low paper, toner, ink, etc?

 

[STU1979]

Hi, thanks for getting back to me so soon. I don't want to rely on a windows 2000 server as a print server but I would like the luxury of the client seeing the printer in AD and getting drivers from that. I guess what I asking for is a 'virtual printer' in AD where the client prints directly to the printer but gets it's drivers and setting from AD. I'm might be asking the impossible but if that is impossible then that would be good to know too!!

Cheers

 

[gazzanewpy]

You want the client system to know about the printer as a direct IP printer but to be aware that the drivers are located elsewhere. I wouldn't say it is impossible (Windows Update will update some drivers and using your server as a SUS server could be an answer) but I would have thought that using a Print Server would give you far more control than you have at present.

Can I ask why you wish to avoid a Server 2000 print server? We have 600 Windows XP workstations (200 of which are wireless laptops) and several Server 2000 servers including one print server. Equally you could use a Windows XP workstation as the print server if you felt hapier about it. Just wondering why.

 

[Alshrim]

I agree with Gazzanewpy -- print spooling will get really ugly without a print server ... printers have only so much memory to queue jobs ...

You can get cheap hardware print server switches.. Linksys and Inexq make 'em - just to name two manufacturers. and they're cost effective too...

but the easiest thing to do is to make a Win2k srvr your print server... Then your drivers are central..

Alshrim
System Administrator
MCSE, MCP+Internet

 

[fs483]

Well for some HP printers like HP3330, HP3380, HP4200 and HP4300 sometimes have problems when they are shared from the print server. At first I had installed these printers on the print server and every workstation would connect to the print server to retrieve the printers. From time to time, the printers would go offline, loose connection, disappear or freeze up. I then finally went around every workstation (luckly about 40 workstations) and installed the CD that came with the printers with direct printing to it's IP address and all the problems disappeared. This test was done at 3 different customer sites with different OSes and since then, I haven't had a single problem.

 

[Alshrim]

Initially, when you installed the printers (before you installed the drivers on all the local machines) how did you connect the PC's and workstations to the printers??

Usually - all you have to do is browse to the print server, right click the desired printer and choose the install or connection option.

This effectively stores the printer dll's to the local machine's HD... this is what I've done here at my shop.. most of our printers are HP as well - and I've yet to run into this phenonmenon.

Cuz - ya that would suck to have to go around to workstation after workstation to install HP drivers... imagine if you had a shop with 2000 people in it... man! that would be horrible.

Have you set static Ip addresses on your HP printers?
And ON any printer server - are these IP addresses set for each printer?

Alshrim
System Administrator
MCSE, MCP+Internet

 

[gazzanewpy]

I wouldn't necessarily give static IPs but reserved IPs within DHCP. The reason is simple: if your scope needs to change then you'll have to go to each printer and redefine the IP range and subnet mask which can be a real pain!

I can understand your issue with the W2K print server system - sometimes it appears to be painful and loses connection but several issues can arise with W2K which can aggrevate the situation.

Firstly are you running a single domain or a forest? Sometimes people install W2K as a forest and have AD on all servers when they only require a Single Domain and therefore one server running AD. This would leave you to have another server that only deals with printing. Clashes between different servers running AD can cause issues with other roles maintained by those servers.