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.
- Pick up your lab laptop from the cart and bring it back to your workspace along with one of the printers from the printer cart.
- Find the user manual for your printer model online and download any appropriate drivers for the printer onto the laptop.
- Install and configure the printer using a USB connection to the laptop
- Create a Windows test printout from your printer
- Show how to remove and replace the toner or ink cartridge from your device
- 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.
- 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 should be set to receive DHCP addresses and connected to your Linksys router. You should not and do not need to connect the router to any campus network connection or Internet connection.
- For this portion of the lab you will need to connect your laptop to your Linksys router network and be set to receive an address automatically.
- Connect your printer to the Linksys router using a network cable as well.
- Print a configuration page from the printer which identifies the IP address of the printer
- Try pinging the IP address of the network printer from the laptop to make sure that you have connectivity.
- 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.
- Look up the printer at the manufacturer's website and download the PCL6 Universal Print Driver.
- Review driver installation instructions for this driver. Note that you will want to select to install in "Traditional Mode". Also, one of the tricky things with network printers is that if you want to connect directly to the printer you still set it up in Windows as a "Local Printer" and not a "Network Printer" which is used if you are accessing a printer shared by another computer. Setting the printer up as a local printer is the only way to give Windows the IP address of the printer.
- Install the networked printer on your laptop and print a 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 Linksys 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.
- Review the documentation on sharing a printer
- Open the Devices & Printers control panel on your laptop and verify that you have a working "local printer" connection to the printer.
- Right click on the printer and choose "Printer Properties" and the switch to the "Sharing" tab.
- Check the box to share this printer and set a unique share name you and your partner will recognize.
- 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.
- Double click on the network printer on your lab desktop to install the network shared printer to the system
- 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?
- Print a test page over the network from your lab desktop system.
- Return your laptop system to the cart and check it back in.