Posted by Jordan Lindsey

Are you ready for Microsoft’s pending end-of-life (EOL) for support of Windows Server 2003/R2, which ends on July 14, 2015? What does this mean?

Essentially, this means no more updates, no savings, no compliance, and no safe haven. Which is not the usual comfort zone for most IT departments. So the question is, how are you going to upgrade your 2003/R2 print server to 2008/R2 or 2012/R2?

Microsoft released 37 critical updates for Windows Server 2003 in 2013. Hackers, phishers and many others delight at the sight of an EOL announcement for any Microsoft products. This means that any enterprise that doesn’t upgrade their print servers will be exposed to new threats moving forward.

If that 2003 server crashes tomorrow or 9 months from now when support ends, what are you going to do? Find new hardware for that old machine? Reinstall the OS, and place a clone back in place? What risk are you accepting by keeping the old OS and Hardware in your environment?

Depending on the industry, you may not be in compliance with many required standards. How are you going to implement new products, bring in new software, and set up new services when the servers you have are not supported anymore? Do you want to report back to the CTO or Sales Manager to explain why your infrastructure is not up to code, why you can’t implement that new product or why you are getting turned down for a big sales opportunity because you’re not compliant?

If you don’t upgrade, you will also lose compliance with Microsoft, which is critical for their partner programs. Are you a Microsoft Gold Partner? Are you selling and using their products to sell your software to customers? Microsoft will not grant you compliance if you are running unsafe, outdated products that have a direct impact on your infrastructure.

Microsoft gives you a few options to migrate your 2003/R2 server to 2008/R2 and 2012/R2. Some are great, some are easy, and some are just downright unpleasant. It’s best to explore the migration of 2003/R2 server now, so that you have no need to panic about the EOL when July 14, 2015 comes rolling around.

Microsoft does offer a Printer Migration Tool. This will take you through a wizard which allows you to export your print queues and drivers, then import them on the new server. Not a bad choice and not too difficult of a solution, provided you don’t have errors or configuration issues. But the bigger question is, do you really want print servers anymore?

Let’s be honest, you kept your 2003/R2 server this long because you didn’t want to touch it. But what is the end user transition going to be like? Do they just get to start printing with a seamless transition, with no problems? And how are you getting your 64-bit drivers and preferences set up? You now have to modify every print queue, on each server you have, with it’s corresponding driver. Are you lucky enough to use a universal driver or do you need a manufacturer driver for specific capabilities? The questions go on and on when it comes to migrating your 2003 print server.

But there is a better solution. Simply do not upgrade your print servers at all!

What are you going to do instead, you might ask? Start using PrinterLogic. PrinterLogic allows you to copy all your print queues, drivers, printing preferences and printer information by simply clicking on a print queue through our web-based application. PrinterLogic can be run a physical or virtual 2008/R2 or newer OS. IT IS NOT A PRINT SERVER! We are going to throw your old print server out the window when this is done.

So how do you simply migrate out of a print server environment without losing what you have?

Simple—as mentioned before, you selected all your print queues, press a green arrow and watch all your print queues copy into PrinterLogic. Once this is finished, you now deploy a small 7mb client out to your workstations via SCCM, GPO, etc. which runs as a system service. When this client installs, it will then silently auto-detect all Windows shared printers and convert them into Direct IP printers. And it will grab control of any already-installed Direct IP printers, too.

You may now turn off and trash that 2003 print server, take a huge sigh of relief that you never have to deal with a print server again in your life, then login to the on-premise, web-based PrinterLogic app to manage all print queues, drivers, printing preferences and automatic printer installs (with Active Directory integration). The client handles everything on each person workstation, keeps everything in sync with the administrative side and users with restricted computer permissions may install their own printers with floor plan maps, all from a web page.

You can please your end users, save costs on running multiple print servers, reduce WAN traffic, simplify upgrades and patching, and eliminate the single point of failure caused by your print servers. You can now sleep at night knowing you will never again get a phone call at 1:00 a.m. that the print server is down and no can print.

Posted by Jordan Lindsey

In just 9 short months—in July of 2015—Microsoft will end support for Windows Server 2003/R2. With this end-of-life announcement, it’s time for many enterprises to consider how they will migrate. So, how are you going to handle the migration to 2008/R2?

Microsoft does offer a Printer Migration Tool. This will take you through a wizard which allows you to export your print queues and drivers, then import them on the new server. Not a bad choice and not too difficult of a solution, provided you don’t have errors or configuration issues. But the bigger question is, do you really want print servers anymore?

Let’s be honest, you kept your 2003/R2 server this long because you didn’t want to touch it. But what is the end user transition going to be like? Do they just get to start printing with a seamless transition, with no problems? And how are you getting your 64-bit drivers and preferences set up? You now have to modify every print queue, on each server you have, with it’s corresponding driver. Are you lucky enough to use a universal driver or do you need a manufacturer driver for specific capabilities? The questions go on and on when it comes to migrating your 2003 print server.

But there is a better solution. Simply do not upgrade your print servers at all!

What are you going to do instead, you might ask? Start using PrinterLogic. PrinterLogic allows you to copy all your print queues, drivers, printing preferences and printer information by simply clicking on a print queue through our web-based application. PrinterLogic can be run a physical or virtual 2008/R2 or newer OS. IT IS NOT A PRINT SERVER! We are going to throw your old print server out the window when this is done.

So how do you simply migrate out of a print server environment without losing what you have?

Simple—as mentioned before, you selected all your print queues, press a green arrow and watch all your print queues copy into PrinterLogic. Once this is finished, you now deploy a small 7mb client out to your workstations via SCCM, GPO, etc. which runs as a system service. When this client installs, it will then silently auto-detect all Windows shared printers and convert them into Direct IP printers. And it will grab control of any already-installed Direct IP printers, too.

You may now turn off and trash that 2003 print server, take a huge sigh of relief that you never have to deal with a print server again in your life, then login to the on-premise, web-based PrinterLogic app to manage all print queues, drivers, printing preferences and automatic printer installs (with Active Directory integration). The client handles everything on each person workstation, keeps everything in sync with the administrative side and users with restricted computer permissions may install their own printers with floor plan maps, all from a web page.

You can please your end users, save costs on running multiple print servers, reduce WAN traffic, simplify upgrades and patching, and eliminate the single point of failure caused by your print servers. You can now sleep at night knowing you will never again get a phone call at 1:00 a.m. that the print server is down and no can print.

Citrix provides some great technological advances and advantages within a company. One thing it does not do, though, is solve your printing problems. Depending on a company’s size and location, many networks are setup to have a Citrix farm at the main data center that everyone connects into from anywhere in the country. There are also different scenarios where a few farms are scattered throughout the country or world to assist with localized connection.

And that leads us to the printing issues. How are print jobs getting to local physical printers when you are connecting from all over the world? Citrix does provide a few built in capabilities with AutoCreate, which allows localized printers to be displayed with a Citrix session so they can be printed to (note that this is only valid with fat clients, as thin and zero clients are usually left with nothing on them locally). There is also a redirect feature which allows print jobs to be redirected out to the local clients, rather than having to go from the Citrix server (note that this is only valid with direct IP printing).

With these two solutions, you need printers created locally and then you are sending print jobs from the Citrix server to the localized workstation, then to the print server that may be local or back at the main data center where the Citrix server is housed, then back to the localized printer. You are making all sorts of WAN hops just to process a print job. Even if you already do Direct IP printing and use the redirect feature, you will not have management for all of the printers without deploying scripts, and without frequently running into driver and spooler issues.

PrinterLogic’s web application gives you all the benefits and features needed for effective Citrix printing bundled into one simple package. It eliminates your print servers, automatically converts all Windows Shared printers into Direct IP printers, then allows Direct IP management in Citrix. It allows you to use all Citrix features without the need of scripts or GPO as all PrinterLogic installed printers are done via system service, guaranteeing all installs regardless of end user permissions and based upon any physical device for Citrix sessions (IP, Hostname, MAC, or any AD credentials).

With PrinterLogic, you can now print within Citrix via Direct IP being sent out the workstation. So even if you’re connecting to a Citrix session on the other side of the world, printing is all done locally from the client directly to the printer. This drastically reduces your WAN traffic and provides you with far greater print management and administration capabilities, all while greatly simplifying the print environment for your end users.

When using Windows Server 2012 as a print server and trying to push printers out to your end-users with group policy objects (GPOs), you can often find yourself with a headache-inducing troubleshooting session. Spending hours trying to figure out why your GPO isn’t deploying the printers out to their assigned workstations can be maddening.

Sometimes the fix is easy and you just needed to add a missing driver, or you might have overlooked a setting in the GPO and forgot to check a box. Other times it’s hours of troubleshooting, combing over Google search results and recreating your GPOs thinking you missed something. While creating GPO scripts is relatively straight forward, it’s clear that doing so when using Windows Server 2012 as your print server is both timely and complex.

With PrinterLogic Web Stack (formerly Printer Installer), you can quickly and easily deploy your printers out to your end-users using the same Active Directory options you have on Windows Server 2012, plus more. You can deploy printers to the Active Directory User, Computer, Group, Container or Organizational Unit. With the Container and OU deployment you have the option of selecting the users, computers, or both in each. You can also deploy your printer out by a Hostname, IP Address, IP Address range, or MAC address of the workstation.

All of these deployment options can be setup in minimal time with PrinterLogic. Unlike printer deployments using GPOs or scripts, which take place while a user is logging into their workstation, deployments set up with PrinterLogic are installed after the user has logged in to their workstation—saving the user time and frustration, which reduces help desk calls.

Posted by Jordan Lindsey

Let’s say you have 500 print queues (or 5,000, or more) on your 2003 Epic Print Server (EPS) that need to be replicated out to multiple new 2008 r2 machines. What are your options? Not a lot from most products out there. You can’t just scrape the old printers off and place them on a new server. You can’t take images, backups, etc. because you can’t take any OS or old version of Epic along the way. So how are you going to replicate out from a single or double 2003 machine to multiple 2008 r2 machines?

That’s where PrinterLogic comes in. Let me show you how.

Say you currently have 2,000 print queue’s on one 2003 (32-bit) EPS you are managing with the old Epic software. You want and need to upgrade your Epic software which requires multiple EPS machines across multiple sites that MUST be an exact replica of each other for print queues. How are we going to make that happen? PrinterLogic’s automated import tool grabs all 2,000 queue’s off the 2003 machine, drops it into PrinterLogic’s web-based app, then automatically installs them on all new EPS machines. Yes, it really is that simple.

PrinterLogic runs on any Windows 2008 R2 or newer physical or virtualized machine. Installation takes 5-10 minutes and is all inclusive of everything it needs to run. You then open up the importer tool. Connect to the 2003 EPS (by simply putting in its hostname or ip address), you will then see a list of all 2,000 print queues. You can drag and drop, click and select specific queues, or drag and select all queue’s, then select a folder you have created within PrinterLogic, then press a green arrow. It will then automatically copy over everything from that 2003 machine into PrinterLogic. This includes printer name, location, comment, IP, protocol, port, 32-bit drivers, (64-bit if you modified your server to set them up), and printing profiles/preferences (i.e., duplexing, trays, color, grayscale, etc.). So, as you can see, we copy over everything you already have setup.

You now have centralized management of all the print queues. You have the option to setup all of the 64-bit drivers and printing preferences, changing IP’s, creating new queues—whatever you could dream of for the print queues. The next step, getting these installed on all the new EPS at the same time, creating exact matches with no errors, and all at the same time so you can be immediately up and running. This is actually the easiest part.

Ready to have your mind blown?

Within PrinterLogic you can deploy or assign the new EPS machines to all 2,000 queue’s with a matter of a few clicks, done in about 10 minutes. You then install the PrinterLogic client (6mb in size) on each of the new EPSs. When you install the client, it will then install all 2,000 print queues on each of the new EPSs. They will all be in sync with each other and what is on the admin side. Moving forward, you make one centralized change in PrinterLogic and it replicates that out to all new EPSs at the same time.

The PrinterLogic client runs as a system service. What does that mean? Permissions are never a problem, reboots are never required, everything is done silently and it’s self-sustaining for any updates and upgrades going forward.

We even go a step further—you can get your enterprise printing folks involved and tell them that PrinterLogic can eliminate every Windows print server they have and allow them to centrally manage the entire company’s print environment. This creates one centralized Direct IP environment with zero points of failure (those unreliable print servers) and give you the power to manage, install and automate installation of printers. We even enable your end users to install their own printers with NO elevated privileges, with simple floor plan maps for physical location of printers. PrinterLogic is the one stop shop for all your corporate printing needs.

For more information, take a look at the user guide below which provides setup details and walks you through the entire process.

/printer-installer/support/user-guide-14-1/pi-implementation-epic/

Managing a Meditech printing environment can be a challenge. Not only do you have to deal with the ordinary challenges of Windows printing, you also have to deal with making sure each of your Meditech print servers all have the same printers, with the same settings and configuration. If a Meditech printer admin creates a new printer, but doesn’t get it installed on one of the print servers, it could cause a problem down the line.

Even more common are typos. If the admin gets the printer name slightly wrong, then that printer might as well not have been created on that printer at all. Multiply this issue with the fact that each server could have hundreds, or even thousands, of printers installed, and you can have a very big issue on your hands.

Enterprise printer management software, such as PrinterLogic, can help alleviate the challenges of deploying and managing printers on your Meditech print servers. With PrinterLogic, instead of having to go to each print server every time a new printer is added or each time a printer needs to be modified, you just need to make your change once from a central management console, and the additions and changes will get copied to each of the servers automatically.

This can dramatically reduce the number of opportunities for user error (not to mention the time savings in printer management), resulting in fewer problems with your Meditech printing environment.