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→Adding a Locally Connected Printer
== Adding a Locally Connected Printer ==
Since servers are generally sequestered in climate controlled server room and printers are located in proximity to the users it always seems a little odd to talk about installing printers with are locally connected to servers. That said, it is a topic which needs to covered, and cover it we will.
Local printers will be connected to the server using either a serial (COM) port, a parallel (LPT) port or a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. Often, Windows will automatically detect a new printer as soon as it is connected and powered up. In this situation an icon will appear in the task bar indicating that the new device has been detected. Clicking on this icon presents the option to view details about the installation process, resulting in the appearance of a dialog similar to the one illustrated below, where a Brother MFC-420CN printer has been detected and is being installed:
[[Image:windows_server_2008_autodetect_local_printer.jpg|Windows Server 2008 Auto detecting and installing a USB printer]]
Once the printer has been installed, it will likely need to be configured for network sharing. To achieve this, launch the Print Management tool, select the print server to which the printer is physically connected and click on ''Printers''. The center pane of the tool will display a list of printers installed on the current print server. Identify the required printer in the list, double click on it to display the properties dialog and select the ''Sharing'' tab:
[[Image:windows_server_2008_printer_share_properties.jpg|Printer Share properties]]
If the printer is to be shared with network client, set the ''Share this printer'' check box and enter a suitable share name for the printer. This page also allows ''Client-side Rendering(CSR)'' to be configured. When selected, all rendering of print jobs is performed on the client and just the RAW print data sent to the server for printing. This offloads the rendering overhead to the client computers, thereby reducing the load, and increasing the scalability of the print server.
If Windows fails to auto-detect the printer it may be added manually from Print Management by right clicking on the print server to which the deice is attached and selecting ''Add Printer...''. On the initial screen select the ''Add new printer using an existing port''and choose the port to which the printer is connected from the drop down list. Once selected, click ''Next'' to install a printer driver. if one is already installed, select it from the drop down next to the ''use an existing printer driver on the computer''. Alternatively, select ''Install a new printer driver'' and either select the printer make and model from the list, or use the ''Have Disk'' to install the manufacturer supplied driver. Click ''Next'' to proceed to the ''Printer Name and Sharing'' screen. Choose whether the printer is to be shared and, if so, by what name. Proceed to the summary screen, review the information and complete the installation.
