Printer Redirection in Windows 2000
Printer redirection was a new feature in Windows 2000. Terminal Server clients use this feature to redirect print jobs in a TS session to the printers on the client. This means that data printed in a Terminal Server session is printed on the local printer of the user’s computer, even though the job was printed in a session on the Terminal Server. Therefore, clients receive printed output from their session regardless of whether the Terminal Server and the client are physically located in the same city—or even the same country. For example, suppose you have users who live and work in Dallas and use a Terminal Server farm in Redmond, Washington to gain access to applications and tools for their jobs. If these users need to print output from these applications and tools in their sessions, it would be extremely difficult to determine the incoming connection’s physical location and then make a network printer connection back to a printing device that was shared at the client site. If users are mobile or if they sometimes work from home, this task becomes even more complex. Local printer redirection solves issues like this very quickly and easily, without requiring any substantial configuration of Terminal Servers to accomplish the goal.
Terminal Server local printer redirection in Windows 2000 allows clients to see and use that local printer in remote terminal server sessions. The clients must have supported printer hardware that is connected directly to their client machine by a serial, parallel, or USB port. Clients that meet these criteria can print from Terminal Servers in physically distant locations and still receive their output at the same physical location where they are accessing the Terminal Server.
To use local printer redirection, applications must be written to use print to queues rather than physical local ports. Applications that require direct access to physical ports, such as LPT or PRN ports, cannot use this feature. The local port redirection feature in RDP 5.1 should meet the needs of these legacy applications.
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