Using XP Pro Box as Network Print Server 1

[theoryofben]

Hello,

My supervisor said that he wants all of our network printers (roughly 8) off of our servers. He wanted me to dedicate one desktop to being the print server.

So, we had a new dell dimension 2400. I loaded it with 1GB of RAM and Windows XP Pro. I added the printers to machine using TCP/IP ports. But, now every few hours the print jobs get stuck and I have to stop the spool service and delete the spool files.

I'm guessing that XP isn't equipped to deal with multiple people printing to multiple network printers. We have roughly 200 people printing to these 8 printers, so there are a lot of jobs.

My question is, are there any third party software products that would help this box handle these print jobs? Also, I could install windows 2000 server, would that be better?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Ben

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[Sky14657]

It's always a good idea to use a server OS for server tasks... How the hell can one produce the idea to let XP Pro handle 8 queues for 200 people? ;-)

Maybe there is some special software for you out there, but surely enough Windows Server is the better option...

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Everybody has the right to be stupid -- but some people abuse the privilege. (a quote from Stalin - and I am one of the abusers, sometimes...)
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Experienced in the IT-chaos since 1984...

 

[MasterRacker]

Any workstation version of Windows is limited to 10 concurrent connections. If you want to share resources to hundreds of people, you need to use a server version.

If you can install Windows Server, you will be fine. ( If you have a decent amount of RAM and disk space, you could potentially share a couple hundred printers from that one box.)

[purple]Jeff
It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day

 

[ntco]

As above, if you just have a windows server license lying around, definitely put it to use. This goes for any server OS--but it depends on your network backbone. I would prefer novell (esp. if you could find an older cheap single license on ebay) as you'd never really need to glance at it again. If you need something free (but have time to learn), a linux box might do you well depending on which printers you have.

 

[theoryofben]

Thanks guys. I had serious doubts. But when the boss says to use xp, what do you do?

So, I will definitely install server 2000. We have a volume licensing agreement with microsoft, so it's not a problem.

The machine has a 40GB drive and 1GB of RAM, so I think that will be fine.

Thanks for the help.

Ben

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[bcastner]

Please note that you will need 200 CALs.
This is going to be one very expensive print server.

 

[haga147]

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Everybody has the right to be stupid -- but some people abuse the privilege. (a quote from Stalin - and I am one of the abusers, sometimes...)
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Nice...

 

[bcastner]

One licensing peculiarity is that the connection limits of XP apply only to its native services. For example, IIs can have a connection limit but running Apache poses no limits.

Similarly, if you used a third-party Print Server software, there would not be a limitation under XP.

 

[theoryofben]

We currently have a per seat licensing agreement. Each workstation has a CAL already. This allows each workstation to connect to all servers that use the per seat option(all of ours).

Basically, each year, we inventory the number of workstations and servers we have and pay microsoft a fat check.

Ben

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
Friedrich Nietzsche