Local Printers

Some department Windows pcs have locally attached printers. By locally, we mean a printer that is physically attached to a computer via the parrallel port: the printer is not plugged into a network socket. Having a local printer is something that is not encouraged as there are enough network printers in the buildings to provide a good service for all users. Support for local printers is also limited due to stocks of toners and spares being at a much lower priority than networked printers. Pcs that do have a local printer are mainly used for confidential work therefore requiring personal services, please email help if you think you should have a local printer explaining why, who authorises it, who's paying for it and the name of the computer you work on. It is not common policy now to buy small, locally attached printers, ones that exist now have been inherited from older machines or from the old Silver Street site where we didn't have the number of network printers we now have.

Users can't create a locally attached printer queue themselves; security permissions deny this. Please email help if you are working on a pc with a local printer but it isn't listed in your available printer listings. It may be that it wasn't re-installed after the machine was setup; apologies in advance if this is the case. Local printers can be shared with other Windows users if the requirement is there. Again, this isn't advisable but if it is needed, please email help explaining your situation. Sharing can be done remotely and is quite quick to setup so you shouldn't experience much delay getting this sorted out.

Once the printer is shared, users can install this printer themselves. There isn't a web page listing all the shared printers (this can vary); they need to look for the printer themselves. To do this, go to the Start menu -> Settings -> Printers. Click Add a Printer. Follow the wizard through, you want to add a network printer. When it asks you to type the printer name, click next, you don't need to type anything in. A list of shared printers will now be displayed. Most of them will be shared of the domain server: you're not interested in this, you want to scroll down until you see the name of the pc that has the locally attached printer that you want to connect to. Expand the tree (double click) the pc's name. Select the printer, click Next. Decide if you want to make this your default printer, press Next. As long as you have the printer drivers on your pc, the printer will install itself without any more intervention, job done.

If your pc doesn't have the drivers, it will ask you for them. If this happens, email help explaining you need a printer driver along with as much information as you can about what you are doing (pc name, room, printer name etc). You may not be able to add a printer if you've not got the security rights to do so. If this happens, you will be informed about this, again, email help giving as much information as you can about what you're trying to do, security rights can only be setup by someone with admin rights.

Note:

A point worth noting is that the printer drivers served from the domain controller (this will be all the networked printers) will have all the settings for that printer setup for users. These settings include things like paper size, if a duplex unit is fitted, amount of memory in the printer, how many paper trays etc. Locally attached printers won't have these settings made so users will have to do these themselves.