Network Printing - What do you use?

[Tracey]

All,

I have a Windows NT domain. Our old backup domain controller used to
be our print server. We recently purchased several new printers and I
decided I would take that opportunity to retire our existing print
server. Well, I thought I researched my options and decided on a
Windows XP Professional box. Those of you in the know, are now saying
"uh oh." So yes, I learned the hard way about the 10 connection
limit. I adjusted the autodisconnect, wrote a script to automatically
disconnect idle connections, etc., etc. Even with all this, this
Windows XP Professional "print server" is not going to cut it.

As I see it, my options are: upgrade our domain to something more
recent (not an option right now); go back to the old print server
(undesirable, but I will if I have to); get into a Linux/Samba
solution (is this really necessary?); buy a $2000 stand-alone HP
appliance (expensive); or set up all 70+ users to print directly to IP
addresses.

Am I missing something here? What are people using to serve their
network printers?

Thanks,
T.

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

Server 2003

You can script the local printer creation using the WMI print provider and
prndrvr.vbs, prnport.vbs, and prnmngr.vbs in system32 but you lose the
central administration of the queues at that point.

With only 70 clients, even Server 2000 would work as long as none of the
client machines require x64 print drivers.

I'd would definity not go back to NT4 as your print server.




--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

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