Franske ITC-2000 Printer Lab

Local USB Printing

In this part of the lab students will setup, configure and test a printer on a Windows 7 laptop.

1. Pick up your lab laptop and bring it back to your workspace along with one of the printers, a printer power cable, and a USB cable.
2. Find the user manual for your printer model online and download any appropriate drivers for the printer onto the laptop.
   • NOTE: Do not use the built in Windows printer driver, it is out of date. Download and install the correct and most up to date driver from the printer manufacturer.
3. Install and configure the printer using a USB connection to the laptop
4. Create a Windows test printout from your printer. On this page you can verify the "Port Name(s)" of the printer show as USB.
5. Show how to remove and replace the toner or ink cartridge from your device
6. Determine if your printer device has any expandability options such as additional RAM slots or networking capability. Find and locate these slots if they exist, the manual may be of assistance in locating these. Use Internet resources to find any maintenance kits/parts such as roller kits, fuser kits, and ink/toner cartridges for the printer as well as their cost and the cost of a new printer.
7. Determine if the device itself can create a test printout (independent of Windows or having a driver installed). If it can, create a test printout from the device itself which details the device specifications and features. If your device cannot make a self-test printout you can research the classroom lab printer and use the menu on the printer to create a test page from that printer.

Network Printing 1: Direct Printer Connection

In this part of the lab students will learn about network printing. For this lab all computers and the printer should be set to receive DHCP addresses and connected to your SOHO router. You should not and do not need to connect the router to any campus network connection or Internet connection.

1. Connect your laptop to your SOHO router using a wired network connection, ensure you are getting an IP address from the router
2. Connect your printer to your SOHO router using a wired network connection, ensure you are getting an IP address from the router
3. Disconnect the printer from any USB connections so we are certain that the printer is being accessed over the network.
4. Print a configuration page from the printer which identifies the IP address of the printer
5. Try pinging the IP address of the network printer from the laptop to make sure that you have connectivity.
6. Try visiting the IP address of the printer in a web browser and see what information you can obtain.
   • NOTE: Depending on the web browser you are using you may need to click advanced on a security warning you receive in order to bypass it and access the printer page. These warnings are because the printer is not using a secure HTTPS connection, in this case on our private network that is not a security issue we need to worry about.
7. Add the printer to the laptop as a directly connected network printer. Note that the terminology in Windows is tricky. Even though we are using the network to connect to the printer it still counts as a "Local Printer" because we are not using a print server yet.
   1. When you select to setup the printer as a local printer you will be asked what "Port" the printer is connected to. You actually need to setup a NEW port with the IP address of the printer and select that port.
8. Install the networked printer on your laptop and print a test page. On this test page you can verify the IP address of the printer is listed in the "Port Name(s)" section of the test page.

Network Printing 2: Windows Printer Sharing

This part of the lab requires that you have correctly set up and tested a direct network printing connection as described above. It also requires a working lab desktop PC connected to your SOHO router.

Even though you can connect directly to the network printer by setting it up as a "Local Printer" there are some advantages to doing that on a single PC which you will use as a print server and then sharing that printer to other computers using Windows File and Print sharing. One of these advantages is that the driver files will be held on the print server PC and other computers can automatically access and download the drivers needed for printer just by double clicking on the printer in the network browser. It also allows print jobs to be managed and controlled on a central computer which is useful in an enterprise environment.

The same type of printer sharing can also be used to share non-networked printers, such as those connected by USB, with other computers on the network.

1. Review the documentation on sharing a printer
2. Open the Devices & Printers control panel on your laptop and verify that you have a working "local printer" connection to the printer.
3. Right click on the printer and choose "Printer Properties" and the switch to the "Sharing" tab.
4. Check the box to share this printer and set a unique share name you and your partner will recognize.
5. Switch to your lab desktop and find and connect to your shared printer in the same way you found and connected to the file share during your networking lab.
   • Hint: Open Start -> Run and type "\\ipaddressoflaptop" then click OK
6. Double click on the network printer name to install the network shared printer to the system
7. Open the Devices & Printers control panel on your lab desktop and verify the network shared printer is now listed. Compare the icon used for the printer with the one on the laptop. Do you see the icon is different showing it is a network shared printer instead of a direct connection to the printer?
8. Print a test page over the network from your lab desktop system. Look at the print out and compare it to the print out of the direct network connection from your laptop. How can you determine whether a computer has a direct connection or a print server connection to a printer?
   • Verify that the computer name and printer name on your new test page show the IP address of the laptop (print server)
9. It can be tricky to verify that your print job is actually going through the Laptop (print server) on it's way to the desktop, show your instructor your test page printout and ask them to verify it is working correctly.
10. Return your laptop system, your lab desktop system, the printer, and the SOHO router.