Making Printers Available to All Users

KB Home   |   Making Printers Available to All Users

Windows 2000, XP and 2003 all have the capability to install a printer and have it globally available to all users (Similar to the way printers worked in the old Windows 95/98 days). Unfortunately the Add Printer wizard does not expose this functionality and only adds the printer for the current user. The command-line needs to be used to install and expose a printer globally. The process is as follows:

1.Log on to the workstation as an Administrator
2.Start→Run and enter “cmd” then press OK
3.Type rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /n\\server\printer where server and printer make up the correct UNC path to the printer.
4.Restart the spooler service with the commands: 
        net stop spooler
        net start spooler
5.The printer should now be listed and available to all users that log onto the workstation.

Also see: Automating printer management in a school, university or education environment for more examples.

Categories: Administration, Printers

Comments

Share your findings and experience with other PaperCut users. Feel free to add comments and suggestions about this Knowledge Base article. Please don't use this for support requests.

Article last modified on April 27, 2007, at 02:24 PM
Printable View   |   Article History   |   Edit Article

Live Chat

We are here to help

As a company full of techies we know how important a well supported product is.

Contact Support