How can I disable users from printing

[Blue Sky]

My question is that I am trying to prevent local users (limited
account types) from printing ? What might be the easiest way to do
this on a Windows XP Pro computer ? The printer is attached to
directly to the computer. I want to be able to prevent all users
except for the account for the administrator to be able to print.

Thanks in advance

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Blue Sky" <[email protected]>

| My question is that I am trying to prevent local users (limited
| account types) from printing ? What might be the easiest way to do
| this on a Windows XP Pro computer ? The printer is attached to
| directly to the computer. I want to be able to prevent all users
| except for the account for the administrator to be able to print.
|
| Thanks in advance

Don't install local printers.
Setup printers on Print Servers and print through Queues and use access control privileges.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My question is that I am trying to prevent local users (limited
account types) from printing ? What might be the easiest way to do
this on a Windows XP Pro computer ? The printer is attached to
directly to the computer. I want to be able to prevent all users
except for the account for the administrator to be able to print.

Thanks in advance

I don't think there is an easy way. If you can set the group
policy (via gpedit.msc) so that it causes each logon event
to be recorded in the Event Logger, and if you can identify
by name the users that are not supposed to print then it is
possible to run a script in the background that monitor the
Event Logger and will either start or stop the print service,
thus enabling or disabling printing.

 

[Blue Sky]

From: "Blue Sky" <[email protected]>

| My question is that I am trying to prevent local users (limited
| account types) from printing ? What might be the easiest way to do
| this on a Windows XP Pro computer ? The printer is attached to
| directly to the computer. I want to be able to prevent all users
| except for the account for the administrator to be able to print.
|
| Thanks in advance

Don't install local printers.
Setup printers on Print Servers and print through Queues and use access control privileges.

Thanks David. The idea of not installing local printers sounds like
the easiest way to go.

 

[Blue Sky]

I don't think there is an easy way. If you can set the group
policy (via gpedit.msc) so that it causes each logon event
to be recorded in the Event Logger, and if you can identify
by name the users that are not supposed to print then it is
possible to run a script in the background that monitor the
Event Logger and will either start or stop the print service,
thus enabling or disabling printing.

Thanks for the reply. Just for the sake of learning.... and to
clearify would you be saying that if I was to run a script for each
logon and in the script I would check for the credentials of the user
signing in and then disabling or enabling the print service ?

 

[Holz]

My question is that I am trying to prevent local users (limited
account types) from printing ? What might be the easiest way to do
this on a Windows XP Pro computer ? The printer is attached to
directly to the computer. I want to be able to prevent all users
except for the account for the administrator to be able to print.

Thanks in advance

You could do so by setting permissions on the parport.sys under the
%systemroot%\system32\drivers.
find parport.sys, remove the users group from the permission list.
The same way you can block people from using USB, cd-rom etc.
To find which drivers are used by each device, go to your hardware
manager, open a an item, driver details, and see which file is used and
it's location.
ugly but works ;-).

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I don't think there is an easy way. If you can set the group
policy (via gpedit.msc) so that it causes each logon event
to be recorded in the Event Logger, and if you can identify
by name the users that are not supposed to print then it is
possible to run a script in the background that monitor the
Event Logger and will either start or stop the print service,
thus enabling or disabling printing.

Thanks for the reply. Just for the sake of learning.... and to
clearify would you be saying that if I was to run a script for each
logon and in the script I would check for the credentials of the user
signing in and then disabling or enabling the print service ?

=========

Running the script at logon time is unlikely to work, because
to disable/enable the print service requires administrative
privileges, which the user would not have. Anyway, here
are the commands:
net start "print spooler"
net stop "print spooler"

 

[Bob I]

Thanks for the reply. Just for the sake of learning.... and to
clearify would you be saying that if I was to run a script for each
logon and in the script I would check for the credentials of the user
signing in and then disabling or enabling the print service ?

=========

Running the script at logon time is unlikely to work, because
to disable/enable the print service requires administrative
privileges, which the user would not have. Anyway, here
are the commands:
net start "print spooler"
net stop "print spooler"

One could run "NET STOP spooler" as a boottime Task with an ADMIN
account, and then only an Admin could restart it after login.

 

[Holz]

One could run "NET STOP spooler" as a boottime Task with an ADMIN
account, and then only an Admin could restart it after login.

I like that too!

 

[he]

My question is that I am trying to prevent local users (limited
account types) from printing ? What might be the easiest way to do
this on a Windows XP Pro computer ? The printer is attached to
directly to the computer. I want to be able to prevent all users
except for the account for the administrator to be able to print.

Thanks in advance

Go to the printer properties and set the permissions under the security tab
so that only the administrator can print. You likely want to remove the
"everyone" and "power users" entries, and leave the "administrators" one.

The "CREATOR OWNER" one should be left at its default (manage documents) -
it allows whoever created a print job to do things like delete it if there
is an error.

 

[Blue Sky]

Go to the printer properties and set the permissions under the security tab
so that only the administrator can print.  You likely want to remove the
"everyone" and "power users" entries, and leave the "administrators" one.  

The "CREATOR OWNER" one should be left at its default (manage documents) -
it allows whoever created a print job to do things like delete it if there
is an error.

This is also an easy method since I am not familiar with scripts and
what not. But thanks for to everyone. Thanks.

 

[Blue Sky]

One could run "NET STOP spooler" as a boottime Task with an ADMIN
account, and then only an Admin could restart it after login.- Hide quotedtext -

- Show quoted text -

When you say "boottime task" do you mean setting up Task Manager under
the administrator's account with the command mentioned by yourself and
Pegasus ?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

One could run "NET STOP spooler" as a boottime Task with an ADMIN
account, and then only an Admin could restart it after login.- Hide quoted
text -

- Show quoted text -

When you say "boottime task" do you mean setting up Task Manager under
the administrator's account with the command mentioned by yourself and
Pegasus ?

==============

This might work but it requires a reboot between sessions.

 

[Frank]

My question is that I am trying to prevent local users (limited
account types) from printing ? What might be the easiest way to do
this on a Windows XP Pro computer ? The printer is attached to
directly to the computer. I want to be able to prevent all users
except for the account for the administrator to be able to print.

Thanks in advance:: Printers and Faxes > printerxxx > properties >

security > Set the permissions