Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

Installing Printers, Scanners, and Fax Machines

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Both physically attached and network-attached devices can be shared as well. The

computer sharing these devices for other computers on the network is referred to as a

print server, regardless of whether the computer is actually running a server version

of Windows. The print server also handles sending the formatted document and

receiving an incoming document. For ease of reference, I’ll refer to both processes as

spooling. A key advantage of using a computer as a print server is that your printers,

scanners, and fax machines will have a central queue that you can manage.

At home or at the office, you don’t have to share printers, scanners, or fax machines

from your computer, or any computer, for that matter. Instead, you can have every-

one connect directly to a network-attached device. When you do this, the network

device is handled much like a local device attached directly to a computer. However,

everyone who uses a network-attached device will then have separate queues, which

can make tracking down problems extremely difficult.

Installing Physically Attached Printers, Scanners, and Fax

Machines

Physically attached printers, scanners, and fax machines are connected directly to

your computer through a serial, parallel, or USB cable and you can install them by

completing the following steps:

1. Run the setup program for the printer, scanner, or fax machine.

2. Connect the printer, scanner, or fax machine to your computer using the appro-

priate serial, parallel, or USB cable, and then turn on the device.

3. Let Windows Vista automatically detect and install the device.

However, not all printers, scanners, and fax machines have or need setup programs.

With my HP All-In-One Printer/Scanner/Fax/Copier machine, all I needed to do was

to connect a USB cable between my computer and the device, and then turn it on.

If Windows Vista detects but isn’t able to install the printer, scanner, or fax machine

automatically, it starts the Found New Hardware Wizard. You can use this wizard to

complete the installation by following these steps:

1. In the Found New Hardware Wizard, click “Locate and install driver software

(recommended)” to continue with the installation (see Figure 12-1).

2. The Driver Software Installation component will then search for preconfigured

drivers according to your Windows Update Driver Settings (see Figure 12-2). As

discussed in Chapter 5, your computer will search its driver cache and may

search the Windows Update site.

3. If the automated process fails, you’ll be prompted to insert the setup disk that

came with your computer, as shown in Figure 12-3. If you have an installation

disk for the device, insert the disk, follow the prompts to complete the installa-

tion, and skip the remaining steps.

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Chapter 12: Setting Up Printers, Scanners, and Fax Machines

4. If you don’t have an installation disk, click “I don’t have the disk. Show me

other options.” Then follow the remaining steps in this procedure.

5. Click “Browse my computer for driver software” and then click Browse to select

a search location.

6. Use the Browse for Folder dialog box to select the start folder for the search, and

then click OK. All subfolders of the selected folder are searched automatically.

7. When you click Next, the wizard will search for and install any appropriate

driver. If the wizard can’t find an appropriate driver, you’ll need to obtain one

and then manually install the device driver.

Figure 12-1. Locating and installing the driver

Figure 12-2. Beginning the automated install