■ Filter Criteria Shows the filter criteria. Enter new filter criteria as necessary.
■ Notification Shows the email and script options. Enter new email and script options as necessary.
Solving spooling problems
Windows Server 2012 R2 uses the Print Spooler service to control the spooling of print jobs. If this service isn’t running, print jobs can’t be spooled. Use the Services console to check the status of the Print Spooler. Follow these steps to check and restart the Print Spooler service:
1. On the Tools menu in Server Manager, tap or click Computer Management.
2. If you want to connect to a remote computer, press and hold or right-click the Computer Management entry in the console tree, and then tap or click Connect To Another Computer. You can now choose the system whose services you want to manage.
3. Expand the Services And Applications node, and then tap or click Services.
4. Select the Print Spooler service. The Status should be Started. If it isn’t, press and hold or right-click Print Spooler, and then tap or click Start. The Startup Type should be Automatic. If it isn’t, double-tap or double-click Print Spooler and set Startup Type to Automatic.
TIP Spoolers can become corrupted. Symptoms of a corrupted spooler include a frozen printer or one that doesn’t send jobs to the print device. Sometimes the print device might print pages of garbled data. In most of these cases, you can resolve the problem by stopping and starting the Print Spooler service. Other spooling problems might be related to permissions. See “Setting printer access permissions” later in this chapter.
Configuring printer properties
The sections that follow explain how to set commonly used printer properties. After you install a network printer, you can set its properties by following these steps:
1. In Print Management, expand the Print Servers node and the node for the server with which you want to work.
2. Select the server’s Printers node. In the main pane, press and hold or right-click the printer with which you want to work, and then tap or click Properties. You can now set the printer properties.
Adding comments and location information
To make it easier to determine which printer to use and when, you can add comments and location information for printers. Comments provide general information about the printer, such as the type of print device and who is responsible for it. Location describes the actual site of the print device. After set, applications can display these text boxes. For example, Microsoft Word displays this information in the Comment and Where text boxes when you select Print from the File menu.
You can add comments and location information to a printer by using the text boxes on the General tab of the printer’s Properties dialog box. Enter your comments in the Comment text box. Enter the printer location in the Location text box.
Listing printers in Active Directory
Listing printers in Active Directory makes it easier for users to locate and install printers. You can list a printer in Active Directory by doing one of the following:
■ Press and hold or right-click the printer’s name, and then tap or click List In Directory.
■ Open the printer’s Properties dialog box, and then tap or click the Sharing tab. Select the List In Directory check box, and then tap or click OK.
Managing printer drivers
In a Windows Server 2012 R2 domain you should configure and update printer drivers only on your print servers. You don’t need to update printer drivers on Windows clients. Instead, you configure the network printer to provide the drivers to client systems as necessary.
You can update a printer’s driver by following these steps:
1. Open the printer’s Properties dialog box, and then tap or click the Advanced tab.
2. In the Driver list, you can select the driver from a list of currently installed drivers. Use the Driver list to select a new driver from a list of known drivers.
3. If the driver you need isn’t listed or if you obtained a new driver, tap or click New Driver to start the Add Printer Driver Wizard. Tap or click Next.
4. If the device manufacturer and model you’re using aren’t displayed in the list, tap or click Windows Update. Windows connects to the Windows Update Web site to update the list of printers to show additional models. This feature is part of the automatic driver provisioning feature. It can take several minutes to retrieve the updated list. You should then be able to select your printer manufacturer and model.
5. If the device manufacturer and model you’re using still aren’t displayed in the list, choose Have Disk to install the new driver from a file or disc. In the Install From Disk dialog box, enter the folder path to the printer driver file or tap or click Browse to find the printer driver file by using the Locate File dialog box. Tap or click OK.
6. Tap or click Next, and then tap or click Finish.
After you install a printer or change drivers, you might want to select the operating systems that should download the driver from the print server. By enabling clients to download the printer driver, you provide a single location for installing driver updates. This way, instead of having to install a new driver on all the client systems, you install the driver on the print server and enable clients to download the new driver.
You can enable clients to download the new driver by following these steps:
1. Press and hold or right-click the icon of the printer you want to configure, and then tap or click Printer Properties.
2. Tap or click the Sharing tab, and then tap or click Additional Drivers.
3. In the Additional Drivers dialog box, select operating systems that can download the printer driver. As necessary, insert the Windows Server 2012 R2 installation media, printer driver discs, or both for the selected operating systems. The Windows Server 2012 R2 installation media has drivers for most Windows operating systems.
Setting a separator page and changing print device mode
Separator pages have two uses on Windows Server 2012 R2 systems:
You can use them at the beginning of a print job to make it easier for users to find a document on a busy print device.
You can use them to change the print device mode, such as whether the print device uses PostScript or Printer Control Language (PCL).
To set a separator page for a print device, follow these steps:
1. On the Advanced tab of the printer’s Properties dialog box, tap or click Separator Page.
2. In the Separator Page dialog box, enter the name of the separator file to use. Typically, you’ll want to use one of these available separator pages:
■ Pcl.sep Switches the print device to PCL mode and prints a separator page before each document