Sharing a Printer
Once you have installed a printer on one of your network
computers, you must share it to make it accessible to all the other
computers on the network, if you have not done so during the
installation. When you share a printer, Windows also enables you to add
printer drivers for other Windows platforms. This way, when a client
computer on the network installs the printer, it can download the
correct driver from the print server automatically.
Installing a printer on one of your network computers is only one
piece of the printing solution; you must share the printer to make it
accessible to the other computers on the network. In many cases, you can
share the printer as you create it using the Add Printer Wizard, or you
can set up sharing after the installation is complete.
Be aware, however, that the Add Print Wizard’s Sharing page lacks one critical facility: It does not list the shared printer in AD
DS. When you share a printer without adding it to AD DS, computers on
the network can send jobs to the printer, but they cannot search the
directory for it, and, more importantly, administrators cannot manage
the printer using the controls on the Network/Devices page of the
Windows SBS Console.
The console populates the Devices list by searching the AD DS database for printer objects, so if you have a shared printer on your network that does not appear in the console, you can add it to the directory in one of two ways:
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By clicking List a shared printer in this console in the Tasks list on the Network/Devices page and specifying the path to the printer share, using the interface shown here.
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By opening the Sharing tab in the printer’s Properties sheet, and selecting the List in the directory check box.
Alternately, you can install the printer first, and then set up sharing. This procedure adds your printer to the AD DS database automatically. To share an existing printer on your server running Windows SBS 2011, use the following procedure:
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Log on to your Windows SBS 2011 server, using an account with network Administrator privileges.
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Click Start, and then click Control panel. The Control Panel window appears.
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Click Hardware. Then click Devices and printers. The Devices And Printers Control panel appears.
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Right-click the printer you want to share and, from the context menu, select Printer properties. The Properties sheet for the printer appears.
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Click the Sharing tab.
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Click Change sharing options. The sharing controls are activated.
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Select the Share this printer check box.
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In the Share name text box, type the name by which the printer will be known on the network.
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Select the Render print jobs on client computers check box, if you want to minimize the processing load on the print server.
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Select the List in the directory check box.
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Click Additional drivers. The Additional Drivers dialog box appears.
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Select the check boxes for the platforms you want to install and click OK. A Printer Drivers dialog box appears for each platform you selected.
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Type or browse to the location of the printer driver for each platform and click OK.
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Click OK to close the Additional Drivers dialog box.
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Click OK to close the printer’s Properties sheet.
