Print Management and Time

Hi there

Trying to set-up printers with time limits, we've got print manager plus installed already, but I've been asked if there is a way we can limit printing so for example, people can't print over lunch time, or certain lessons? We've got a script that will stop the print spooler, but that will stop all printers, as we have one print server that controls most of the printers in the school and we want to target specific printers rather then the whole lot.

Also was asked to look for some sort of program or script that would enable me to put a button on staff desktops that could freeze the printing in their room. I know I could just give them control of the printers and they could just knock them off line, but supposedly that may be a little difficult for them.

You can only specify a pair of printer availability times, not multiple unfortunately.

To be honest you could do with some print management software, such as Print Manager Plus (like I use) or there are others. By specifying credit limits for users, the responsibility is put on them. If they want to use up all their credit in an afternoon or lunchtime then that's ok. All other jobs are automatically deleted.

Stopping the spooler as you say isn't an option as it'll just create errors on the network and will stop printing for all users. The only way I can see around this is if you have multiple print servers and schedule a batch file to stop/start the spooler service on that particular print server. It does seems a lot of hassle and a proper investment in a print management utility would definitely be my recommendation.

Hi Micheal

Yeah, we've got print manager already installed, did say that :), What sort of credit limit do you have per a user?

Could create some virtual print servers I guess.. that could work, but again, its quite a lot of extra work!

*Puts his goggles back on, sorry Simon. This is what happens when you have to go for 5 mins and come back haha

It really depends, anywhere between £3 to £10 for pupils, £100 for staff and unlimited for admin users generally speaking. Black and white pages 10p and colour pages 50p each. This is renewed monthly.

Actually thinking about it, it is possible to create multiple shared printers using one IP.

So lets say you gave a HP printer a static IP_192.168.1.100, on printer server 1 you could call it/share it as Staff Printer and on printer server 2, you could call it/share it as Pupil Printer (for example).

Then as I mentioned before, creating a batch file to stop/start the spooler at particular times on print server 2:

Code:

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@echo off
net stop spooler

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Code:

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@echo off
net start spooler

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If you wanted to, you could also give the staff printer a higher priority, so their work comes out before a pupils. This is always popular with the staff ;)