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Just wondering if anyone can help me out with some best practice for setting up a new print server and all of the individual queues.

I have some questions regarding setting up the print queues, for example should I prefix the port names with IP_10.x.x.x etc? or just leave the port names 10.x.x.x

Any feedback regarding best practice for print servers on windows server 2008 is appreciated.

Thank you very much, Nick119

Nick119
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Portnames don't mean a whole bunch, though if you have a print-server with a lot of print-queues on it the names do begin to make some difference. At my old job I was running a print server that supported somewhere around 1700 computer-lab seats at a large University. We had about 120 queues on that thing, and at that scale naming your printer-ports does make sense so you can identify the redundant ones at a glance.

That said, some printer-accounting software is aware of port-names so renaming them may not be a good idea on some cases. This depends on the software being used.

For smaller print-servers (say, 10 queues) port-names are largely meaningless. For larger ones, naming them some variant of the queue name can help keep things better organized when adding/removing/troubleshooting.

sysadmin1138
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  • Can only agree with this. We've got two print servers with a couple of hundred queues, and there's no way in heck I'd want to troubleshoot it if the printer queues and port names weren't meaningful – Rob Moir Oct 09 '11 at 21:32
  • Yeah we have about 100 or so printers. Thank you for your feedback. – Nick119 Oct 09 '11 at 22:52
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Personally, when viewing TCP/IP ports in the Print Management MMC console or in the printer properties, seeing a port named "AccountingDepartment" or "HP_4050_TN" isn't helpful to me as a sysadmin.

What is important to me, when viewing the printers in the Print Management console or in the Printers control panel is the name, location, and comments (as well as the server name and share name in the Printer Management console).

I normally name the port to match the ip address for a TCP/IP printer, such as: 10.1.5.10. That way when I'm viewing the printer properties or the TCP/IP ports in the Print Management console, I know exactly what ip address has been assigned to each printer.

joeqwerty
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  • Yeah this is what I'm going to do - It is just easier to troubleshoot by IP address? – Nick119 Oct 09 '11 at 22:52
  • For me it is. When I look at the port in the Ports section of the Printer Management console or in the printer properties I want to see what ip address it is without having to look at the port properties to determine the printer name of the port or the ip address of the port. – joeqwerty Oct 09 '11 at 23:02
  • Agreed, also you rule out relying on DNS to resolve a host name. I've already finished the entire 5th/6th floor printers haha. – Nick119 Oct 10 '11 at 00:35
  • Do you have any experience with HP / Xerox Universal drivers? – Nick119 Oct 10 '11 at 00:35
  • I've used HP universal print drivers several times, but frankly I think it's a pain. If your printer doesn't have drivers specific to the client and server OS then you're better off getting a new printer. UPD's don't often support all of the functions of the specific printer and are often flaky in operation. – joeqwerty Oct 10 '11 at 00:53