Network Printer Migration from Windows Server 2003 to Server 2008 R2 (Virtualized)

[johndesd]

Hello edugeek community;

 

I have been assigned a task to move my networked print environment from physical servers (Dell 2850's) to virtual guests. The moves will be 1:1, so that all of the print queues currently hosted on one physical server will be moved intact to the same virtual guest. I will be testing the migration in our model lab. The last printer migration I completed was from W2k to W2k3, so I have a few initial questions I'm hoping the community can help answer that will help bring me up to speed and avoid a few mistakes and frustrations along the way.

 

The virtual guests have been installed with Windows Server 2008 R2, but our networked print queues currently reside in a 32 bit Windows Server 2003 environment. Approximately 90% of our printer environment (2200 print queues) have been installed with both x32 and x64 bit drivers to accommodate our users in a split environment of Windows XP (32) and Windows 7 (64). The XP users are being refreshed to Windows 7, but a significant number of them will be with the XP platform for some time to come. Will migration to the 64 bit environment on the virtual guest inhibit the XP users from connecting to their print queues?

 

Which tool would be the most effective to complete the migration? I have MS Print Management on my x64 Win 7 workstation, but I use PrintMig to back up our print queues/print drivers to .cab files on the Windows 2003 host servers. But I know that PrintMig is outdated and I am under the impression it cannot be used to migrate to a 64 bit environment. Is this true?

 

As I plan to test the migration, I figure I will discover more attributes of the migration tool to complete the move. However, is there an option in Print Management that will allow me to copy print queues to our test server as opposed to moving them? And is there a switch that will hide them from Active Directory to keep users from attempting connection during testing?

 

Thank you all in advance.

[Michael]

By using Print Management on 2008 R2 there's a built in printer migration tool you can use to migrate printers from one print server to another. As you mentioned, don't use the 2003 PrintMig tool. It doesn't work on 2008 R2.

 

Also (as a recommendation), make sure all drivers support Windows 7 x64 and 2008 R2 properly, as this can make all the difference when migrating printers.