Microsoft® PowerShell, VBScript and JScript® Bible

Chapter 19. Maintaining Shared Directories, Printer Queues, and Print Jobs

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating shared folders

• Configuring shared folders

• Managing print queues

• Controlling print jobs

In previous chapters, you learned how to manage network resources, in particular network drives and network printer connections. Now it's time to extend this knowledge so that you can create, control, and configure related resources; namely shared folders, print queues, and print jobs. A key concept on any network is resource sharing; both folders and printers can be shared.

When you share a folder, you make all of its files and subfolders available to network users. Authorized users can then access this shared folder by creating a network drive that points to the folder. Using ADSI, you can create shared folders and set shared folder properties.

When you share printers, you configure a printer for remote access over the network. If a user prints a document, the document is routed to a print queue where it is stored prior to printing. Documents in a print queue are referred to as print jobs. Print jobs can be handled in FIFO (first in, first out) fashion. They can also be printed according to their priority—for example, a print job with high priority is printed before a print job with low priority.

Working with Shared Folders

As you know, shared folders are used to make data available over the network. What you may not know is how shared folders generally are managed. Normally, you create and configure shared ...