Chapter 10. Printers
This chapter covers
Printers are probably the second most common cause of issues in Windows environments (password resets are the first). In many cases, these are logistical issues involving toner, paper, and mechanical problems that administrators can’t control directly, but we can control the printer and its associated print jobs. PowerShell and WMI enable us to perform the control tasks on remote or local systems.
Note
A printer in Windows terminology is the queue to which a print job is sent. It’s linked to one or more physical print devices.
The first two parts of this chapter are concerned with discovering information about printers. Our starting point will be to determine what printers are connected to a particular computer. The capabilities of those printers are very important; for example, can a particular printer print in color? This information is available through WMI, but you have to deal with collections of properties to determine the answers. We’ll then look at printer drivers and printer ports. Many printer issues can be traced to using an incorrect driver, and having a quick way to determine the exact driver can save time when troubleshooting.