Share via

Print Services Migration: Verifying the Migration

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2

Verify the migration

The sixth step in the migration process is to verify that the migration was successful by testing and validating the new print server. The Printer Migration Wizard provides detailed logging of migration events in the Event Viewer.

To verify destination server configuration

  1. View event log messages about the migration.

    • If you are managing Print Services migration from a remote client computer, you can view event messages in Custom Views\Administrative Events in Event Viewer on the Windows-based client computer.

    • If you are managing migration from the destination server and Print Services is not yet installed, then migration-related events are logged in Custom Views\Administrative Events in Event Viewer on the destination server.

    • If you are managing migration from the destination server and Print Services is installed, events are logged to a different location.

      To view details after closing the Printer Migration Wizard, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Event Viewer. In the Event Viewer pane, under Custom Views, click Server Roles, and then click Print Services. In the center pane, click the printer migration event to view details.

Note

In Windows Server 2008, the Administrator role handles the functions of the Windows Server 2003 Print Administrator role.

  1. To verify that each printer queue was migrated to the new server:

    • Manually check the destination server for each printer migrated from the source server.

    • Verify that the printer associated with each printer queue is online.

    To check each printer queue’s online status in the Print Management snap-in, under Print Servers, click Printers. A list of all migrated printers appears in the center pane, listing the printer queue status for each printer. Clients will be unable to print to printers that were not restored successfully, and any connections to a missing printer queue will be invalidated.

  2. Check the printer queue settings.

    • Confirm that a printer queue’s special settings, permissions, or drivers were preserved during the migration.

    • Check the properties for each queue on the destination server and verify that any special settings are still applicable.

    • If the driver installs any non-standard settings that have been altered as a result of the migration, verify those as well.

Note

The migration process only preserves printer queue permissions. Other permissions on the source server, such as system permissions (for example, user accounts) and custom permissions, are not migrated using this process.

  1. Make any necessary changes, such as adding a port monitor or a new driver.

Rename the destination server to the name of the source server

Temporarily rename the destination server. For example, you can name the destination server the same as the source server with _NEW appended to the source server name. After verifying that printers are restored to the destination server, rename the source server (for example, by appending _OLD to the source server name), and then use the source server’s pre-migration name as the new name of the destination server.

Important

Validating existing printer connections from client computers can only be completed after the destination server name is the same as the pre-migration source server name. Print connections to the server in the period between renaming the source server and renaming the destination server will fail. All migration steps should be complete on the destination server before renaming to ensure that the downtime occurs only between the renaming of the source server and the final renaming of the destination server.

If you are using Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) to publish printers, do the following to ensure that AD DS does not contain multiple instances of the same printer.

When you restore printers to the destination server, do not publish printers to AD DS. This prevents duplicate printers from being displayed by AD DS before the destination server configuration is verified.

On the source server, you must unpublish printers before renaming the source server. To do this, select all printers in the Print Management snap-in, right-click the selected printers, and then click Remove from Directory. This prevents printers from being published twice to AD DS when the source server is renamed.

After renaming the destination server to the source server’s original name, you can publish all printers on the destination server to AD DS. To do this, select all printers in the Print Management snap-in, right-click the selected printers, and then click List in directory.

To verify configuration of other computers in the enterprise

In most cases, a new print server will not affect other computers in the enterprise. Existing client connections may be corrupted if you make a change to any of the following print server properties:

  • The print server name

  • The printer name

  • The print share name

  • The share permissions

  • The printer’s availability to the server

Print a test page to each printer queue from a client (or set of clients) that had an existing connection to the source server to verify that other computers are not affected by the new print server. In a cross-architecture environment, test each supported architecture.

From a client computer that is configured to print to the source print server, use the existing print queue to print a page to the new server. If you cannot print a test page:

  • Determine if one or more of the print server properties listed above have been changed.

  • Check whether the destination server is available to the client on the network. Create a new connection to a printer on the destination server to verify that the client and server are communicating normally.

See Also

Concepts

Print Services Migration Guide
Print Services Migration: Preparing to Migrate
Print Services Migration: Migrating the Print and Document Services Role
Print Services Migration: Post-Migration Tasks
Print Services Migration: Appendix A - Printbrm.exe Command-Line Tool Syntax
Print Services Migration: Appendix B - Additional Destination Server Scenarios