Deploying printer connections
One of the options available in the context menu when you
right-click on a printer is called Deploy With Group Policy.
Selecting this option opens the dialog box shown in Figure 12, which you use
to associate the printer with a specific Group Policy Object (GPO)
to allow the printer connection to be automatically deployed to
users or computers targeted by the GPO. This method of deploying
printers is useful when users of client computers are standard users
and not local administrators on their computers, because standard
users lack sufficient privileges to be able to install printers on
their computers.
Note
Printer sharing in Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 now supports several different ways of
enabling the deployment of print shares:
-
Enhanced Point and Print, which allows the print server
to share a printer with any other supported Windows client
without the need for additional drivers. This feature is new
in Windows Server 2012 and is available only when v4 print
drivers are being used.
-
Package Aware Point and Print, which allows print
servers to distribute signed driver packages to clients. This
feature was introduced in Windows Server 2008 to improve
security and eliminate the security prompts of the legacy
Point and Print method.
-
Legacy Point and Print, which was introduced in Windows
2000 and involves having the server spooler provide the client
with just enough information to download the required v3
printer driver files from the server.
-
Internet Printing Protocol, which was also introduced in
Windows 2000 and allows clients to install print shares from a
webpage if the proper drivers have been staged on the print
server.
Administrators who are migrating their organization’s
infrastructure from earlier versions of Windows Server to Windows
Server 2012 will also want to migrate their print servers to the new
platform. Installing the Print And Document Services Tools feature
provides you with the following tools for migrating from print
servers running Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows
Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2:
-
The Printer Migration Wizard shown in Figure 13, which you can
launch from the Print Management console by right-clicking on
the root node in the console tree and selecting Migrate
Printers.
-
The Printbrm.exe command-line tool, which is located in
the %windir%\System32\spool\tools folder.
