Exercise 8.7: Creating a Local Printer with Windows NT

Exercise 8.7: Creating a Local Printer with Windows NT

Objective: Create a locally installed printer on NT.

Estimated time: 20 minutes

1.	Click Start, Settings. Then choose Printers to open the Printers window.
2.	Click on Add Printer to display the Add Printer Wizard. As with many other administrative tasks, the process of creating and sharing a printer has been streamlined and simplified by the use of a “wizard,” a small program that leads you through a particular task. Choose My Computer and click Next.
3.	The wizard asks you to specify the port or ports to which the new printer should print. Choose lpt1: and click Next. You can define multiple ports because printers in Windows NT and Windows 95 are virtualized. This refers to the fact that a printer in these environments is not a physical machine but rather a collection of settings and configuration information about a particular machine. You can test this by installing a printer—or a modem or a network card—that is not actually physically present in your machine. The device will install perfectly, but you will receive an error if an application attempts to access it, because this device doesn’t exist. When a matching physical device is attached, the virtual device will recognize it and forward information as needed. For those of you who have used print queues, it might be easiest to think of a printer as a new name for a print queue. The machine itself is referred to as a printing device.
4.	The wizard now asks you to specify the type of physical device to which you are printing or the device type that your printer emulates. Click HP in the left pane and then find and select Color LaserJet. Then click Next.
5.	Now you are asked to name your new printer. Remember that each printer on your machine must have a unique name, and that name should be descriptive of its type or function. Type Color Printer and click Next.
6.	Now you are asked whether the printer will be shared, and if so, what other operating systems will access it. Click Shared, call the new share MyLaser, and select Windows 95 from the list of additional operating systems. Note that each supported Windows NT platform requires a different driver. Click Next.
7.	The wizard now has all the information it needs. Leave the Print Test Page option on and click Finish. You will need the source files for both your Windows NT Server or Workstation and for Windows 95. You are prompted for the location of the source files, and the necessary drivers are loaded.

The Printer icon for Color Printer is created in the Printers window. Select it and the queue appears. Print a document to the new printer and check the queue again. The document should be waiting to print.