Friday, July 31, 2009

scheduling printers

scheduling printers is a technique you can use to help manage the flow of print jobs on your windows 2003 network. scheduling a printer means assigning the hours a specific print device available for use by a specific printer.

when scheduling a printer the hours of availability apply only to the print device, not to the printer. this means that users can print to the printer at any time during the day. and the printer then spools the jobs to the hard disk. however the print jobs are sent to the print device only during the print device's hours of availability.

so why should you want to schedule a printer? well, suppose that you are the administrator for a small network that has 20 windows computers. the owner of the company recently brought a laser print device for network printing, and doesn't want to spend any more money on print devices. one of the employees occasionally generates a print jobs that is 500 to 600 pages long. this report ties up the one available print device for a long time, frustrating other employees. the large reports are for archival and reference purposes, and are not needed immediately.

you solve the problem by scheduling printers. first you create second printer that prints to the laser print device.the you schedule the new printer so that it only sends print jobs to the print devices during non business hours. you instruct the employee who creates the large print jobs to use the new printer for large print jobs. the result is that the employee can generates large print jobs at any time without inconveniencing other employees. the large print jobs are spooled to the hard disk, and then sent to the print device during non business hours.

configuring printer pools

when a printer has a multiple ports (and multiple print devices) assigned to it, this is called a printer pool. users print to a single printer, and the printer load balances its print jobs between the print devices assigned to it.

a printer pool is a useful tool when both of the following criteria met
  • all print devices assigned to the printer use the same print device driver. (usually this means that identical print devices are used)
  • all print devices assigned to the printer pool are located physically close to each other.

managing printing

printing terminology

printer

a printer is the software interface between the windows 2003 operating system and the device that produces the printed output.windows 2003 calls a printer as a combination of a print queue (or print spooler) plus a driver for the device that produces printed output.

print device

in windows 2003 the term print device (or printing device) refers to the physical device that produces printed output - what is more commenly referred to as a " printer "

auditing and connecting to printers

there are two types of printers you can add
  • local printers
  • network printers
adding a printer on a remote computer
  • start windows explorer (select start - programms - accessories - windows - explorer)
  • in the left pane, click the + next to my network places. click the + next to entire network. click the + next to microsoft windows network. click the + next to the domain or workgroup that contains the computer on which you want to add a printer. click the + next tothe computer on which you want to add a printer.highlight the printers folder.
  • the contents of the printers folder on the remote computer appear in the right pane. to start the add printer wizard on the remote computer, double click add printer. follow the instruction presented earlier in this chapter to add a printer.
connecting to internet printers

an internet printer is a printer that is published (made available) on a web server for the purpose of making the printer available to client computers on the internet, client computers on your company's intranet or both.

you can access internet printers on a windows 2003 computer at http://server_name /printers

Friday, July 24, 2009

how to repair boot sector in xp

If your pc wont be able to boot from xp there might be a damaged boot sector or a missing or corrupt ntldr or ntdetect.com files, to repair these items follow these steps.

To repair a damaged Boot Sector
  • go to the recovery console
  • type following command and press enter
  • fixboot
  • press Y and proceed
Note - the boot sector is written to the partition that's currently labeled as the C: drive

To replace damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com

To replace damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com you can copy fresh files from the XP CD using the COPY command. Boot with the XP CD and enter the Recovery Console.At the Command Prompt type the following (where "X" is your CD-Rom drive letter) allowing the files to overwrite the old files.
  • COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C:
  • COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:

how to format using recovery console

there is some commands you should know before format, these are

format for initialised format command
/q for quick format
/fs specify file system (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS)

So before using command select format drive, select quick format or full format, and file system.

For example if you put FORMAT C: /Q /FS:NTFS will quick formats C partition as NTFS

If you put FORMAT C: /FS:FAT32 will full format of C as FAT32

Note - If a file system is not specified, then the existing file system format is retained.

how to repair master boot record (MBR) in xp

a problem with the master boot record in a system may prevent the system from booting.MBR can be corrupted in several ways, it can corrupted by malicious code, by disk errors, or be overwritten by other boot loaders.but you can easily repair MBR using recovery console.go to the recovery console by either following ways from windows xp installation disk or Windows XP Recovery Console at startup (first have to install) for this example we get start from windows installation cd,
  • Start your pc in with CD-ROM support and windows installation cd on it.
  • When prompted, press R to repair a Windows XP installation.
  • If you repairing multiple operating systems, select the appropriate one (XP) from the menu. If you have only one operating system, enter 1 to select it.
  • Enter the administrator password if prompted
  • To fix the MBR, use the following command
  • fixmbr
  • Type y and ENTER to fix the MBR
  • Type exit and press enter to leave the recovery console and reboot system.

for additional info
to install recovery console in windows xp read this post

Monday, July 20, 2009

disable " compress old files " option in windows xp

have trouble when every time you clean-up your hard disk, wasting more time with compressing old files? want to know how to disable compressing old files, here's how

  • go to registry editor (click start- run- type regedit - press enter)
  • navigate to the following registry key
  • H_K_L_M \ \SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \Explorer\ VolumeCaches \ CompressOldFiles

  • delete the complete key of CompressOldFiles
  • exit the registry and run disk cleanup again
  • you will see that there is no more compressing old files, your problem is fixed.

also you can disable office setup files from the disk cleanup

just go to the registry key of

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Office Setup Files


and delete the key office setup files, that's it.

customise default view in word 2003

in some cases when you open a two-page-or-more Word document that is attached in Outlook e-mail, it shows up as two pages side by side instead of one page under the other one. how do you go back to the old way it used to display ?

here is the answer, follow these steps
  • open word 2003
  • click tools menu and select option
  • when option tabbed dialog box appears click general
  • uncheck the " allow starting in reading layout "
  • click ok and you are done.

create message rule in outlook 2003

Outlook 2003 allows you to create many different types of rules to help automate and organize your email. Once set, these rules enable Outlook to automatically perform such actions as the following

  • Flag messages from a specific person
  • Move messages from certain person to a special folder
  • Redirect messages based on subject
  • Display an alert message when an important message arrives
  • Assign a category based on the content of a message
  • Open or start a program after receiving a certain message
  • Filter unwanted or junk messages to specified folder
  • print messages containing specific words or phrases
For example we create message rule for Move messages from certain people to a special folder
  • Open outlook 2003
  • Now click rules and alert in tools menu
  • Click new rule button
  • Select move messages from someone to a folder in a step 1
  • In step 2 click people or distribution list
  • Type the name of certain person or select from list ( after type the name and click from button to select person or double click name from list)
  • Click Ok to select person.
  • Again in step 2 click “move it to specified folder”
  • Now click new button to add new folder, rename as you like and click ok.
  • Select the newly created folder and click ok
  • Click next
  • Be sure to select first two rules in select condition list, click next
  • Be sure to select first rule in select action list
  • In next area leave it as default and click next
  • Now click finish

You are successfully created new message rule,after now on the messages received from the person you selected are automatically moved to the folder you specified.

address list could not be displayed in outlook 2003

some time if you restore backup PST file outlook 2003 or attempt to address a new message from your Contacts you might have following error.

"The address list could not be displayed. The Contacts folder associated with this address list could not be opened; it may have been moved or deleted, or you do not have permissions. For information on how to remove this folder from the Outlook Address Book, see Microsoft Outlook Help"

as a result of this error you cannot enter email address while you composing new message.so how do you fix this error ?, to fix this error you must remove and reinstall the Outlook Address Book.to do this please follow these steps.
  • Start Outlook 2003
  • On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts
  • Click View or change existing directories or address books, and then click Next
  • Click Outlook Address Book, and then click Remove
  • Click Yes when you receive the prompt to confirm the removal action
  • Now Click Add
  • Click Additional Address Books, and then click Next
  • Click Outlook Address Book, and then click Next
  • Click OK when you receive the message to restart Outlook 2003
  • Click Finish
  • Now exit from Outlook 2003
  • Restart Outlook
  • In the Folder list, right-click the folder that you want to use with the Address Book, and then click Properties
  • Click the Outlook Address Book tab
  • Click to select the Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book check box (if it is not already selected), and then click OK
you are done and your problem will be fixed.