Windows 8 Printer Management
With every new version of an operating system comes new software intelligence to make installation and maintenance easier, but printer technology is ever-changing and hardware vendors continue to keep up with the changes. For all the variety of printers on the market, the driver base is huge. Even for the same printer, there are numerous variations. Each printer comes with many options available, which has to be controlled by the operating system through printer drivers.
MS Definitions in the Printer World
In Windows, there is a distinction between the functions of the hardware and the software, which includes both driver and controlling software. The term printer refers to the physical piece of hardware and the functions of that hardware. The physical device that has paper refers to the print device, not the printer. The printer is considered the software application that controls the print device on the local computer. The printer driver is the software collector between operating system and locally installed software (the printer). In most organizations, notice that a print device is not attached to every computer and rather is shared between users. Sharing a print device is a cost effective method for an organization, but it tends to cause issues and create headaches for the IT team. Often, we know that many users need to print something only once in a while, so we send documents or web pages that we would like to print to the print device that is connected to someone’s computer and shared for others to use, or it might be a stand-alone. Depending on your environment, you might have one or more print devices attached on to a server on your network and everyone sends their documents to a main location. Each user computer has a printer installed and the proper drivers to allow Windows 8 to send the document to the print device through the printer with the appropriate instructions.
The print device cannot physically print a document at the same speed the printer can send to the data to it. A software component called the spool or spooler or print spool is necessary to buffer the print job until the print device can complete it. The spool handles very well when there might be more than one user sending documents to be printed to the same print device at the same time.
How to Install Printer on Windows 8
There are two ways to install a printer device. One way to install a printer device is to physically connect the print device directly to the computer. The second way to install a printer device is to connect it wirelessly over the network. Software drivers are required in either case, and these can be found on a CD/DVD, on a network share, or in the Windows distribution files. In Windows 8, printers are located in the Devices And Printers, thus allowing Device Stage configuration to provide a range of functionality from this single location.
To add a printer to a local computer, run the setup program on the CD/DVD per manufacturer’s instructions. The manufacturer’s setup program wizard will ask you appropriate questions. You can also set up the printer through Windows 8 through Devices And Printers and using choosing the Add Printer function.
To add a printer using the Windows 8 function, go to Start > Devices And Printers and then choose Add Printer. Your computer detects USB printers and installs their drivers or searches for them automatically.
Choosing Add Printer prompts the Add Printer wizard and brings up a screen where you choose to install the printer and print device locally or install the printer locally to access a remote print device.
To install the printer for a physically connected print device to a computer assuming the setup program on the CD/DVD (if applicable) was not run and you’re installing the printer from the wizard associated with Windows.
Installing a Printer for a Locally Connected Print Device
Perform the following steps to install a printer to your local machine’s parallel port (lpt1):
1. Choose Start Devices And Printers.
2. Choose Add Printers.
3. Select the Add A Local Printer option.
4. In the Add Printer window, choose the Use An Existing Port radio button. Use the drop-down window and select LPT1: (Printer Port); then click Next.
5. Select manufacturer of your print device and printer model to install in the Install A Printer Driver window.
6. If a driver was previously installed, the wizard will ask you if you want to use the existing driver or replace it.
7. After you choose the proper device driver or use the existing driver, click Next.
8. Now choose the name of the printer, enter in the name and click Next.
9. You can share the print device by making it available on the network. The next page of the Add Printer wizard allows you to share it. Within the wizard, you can mostly change the values or function from the properties pages, if you decide to make changes later. After making your choice, click Next.
10. On the last page of the Add Printer wizard, select the checkbox for Set As The Default Printer, which will make this the default printer on the computer. Click Print A Test Page. After the test page prints, click Finish. The locally connected print device has its printer installed on the local computer.
After you complete the Add Printer Wizard or choose to use the hardware vendor’s setup program to install your printer, open the Devices And Printers window and see the available printer(s). The context menu allows access to the properties pages as well as some standard printing functions in prior Windows.
To install a printer on a computer that needs to access a print device connected to another computer, launch the Add Printer wizard and go through the process of installing the printer, but point to a shared or stand-alone network printer. Not all machines on any company’s network will have physically attached print devices but there is functionality that allows sharing of networked devices and printers (software) to be installed on client computers.
