Through the Printer Management Console (PMC), administrators have a central interface for managing all printers connected to all print servers within an organization. With PMC, administrators can monitor printer errors, deploy printer connections to clients, automatically find and install printers on a local branch office subnet, and run configuration scripts. PMC allows branch servers to perform as print servers because they are remotely manageable on a one-to-many basis.
PMC is an MMC snap-in that enables administrators to view and manage all the printers on every print server in administrators’ organization from any computer on the network running Windows Server 2003 R2. PMC provides up-to-the-minute details such as the queue status, printer name, number of jobs, driver name, and server name. By using the PMC filtering capability, administrators can set custom views. For example, administrators could view only those printers in a particular error state or only printers in a specific location that have more than one job in the queue.
Filtering by error state also allows administrators to manage multiple queues at once. For example, administrators can select more than one printer and then cancel, pause, or resume all the print jobs simultaneously. Administrators can also delete multiple printers at the same time.
The automatic detect feature finds and installs printers from the local subnet to the local print server. Administrators can log on to a branch location's local server by using Remote Desktop and use this feature to easily install printers remotely.
In cases where a printer has a printer Web page, PMC may display rich troubleshooting details such as exactly where a paper jam is happening or the printer’s toner level. Some printer Web pages give the Administrator options for remote control functions that can help resolve problems at branch locations. By using the PMC, the printer Administrator may have a clearer picture of the problem before assistance is needed.
|
