The name that identifies a particular computer on the network.  This has no relationship to any user name.  To find the computer name:

Windows 2000:

1. right click on My Computer on the desktop and select Manage

2. right click on the root of the tree in the left pane of the Computer Management window (Computer Management (Local)) and select Properties

3. Select the Network Identification tab

Windows XP:

1. click Start, right click on My Computer and select Manage

2. right click on the root of the tree in the left pane of the Computer Management window (Computer Management (Local)) and select Properties

3. Select the Computer Name tab

To enable printer pooling:

    1. Open the Properties of the Printer to be pooled

    2. Select the Ports tab

    3. Add a check mark to the Printer Pooling check box

    4. Click on the port(s) corresponding to the print device(s) that are to be part of the pool to add a check mark to them

    5. Click OK

port

1. physical port: a connector and associated electronics for attaching peripherals (e.g. parallel, serial, USB)

2. local port: a logical construct (object) that describes a physical port (see 1 above) or some other piece of equipment (e.g. a printer's LAN adapter) and controls communication between devices attached to that physical port and the operating system or applications.  Typical types of ports for print devices are parallel (LPT), Standard TCP/IP and USB.

3. network printer port: a local port (as in 2 above) that represents a printer share on another computer

4. IP port: a logical end point of a communication path using TCP/IP.  For example, port 80 is the TCP port through which a web server communicates with web browsers; port 515 is the TCP port that the Line Printer Daemon (LPD service) receives communication from Line Printer Requestor (LPR) clients.

A small piece of software that is responsible for providing a communications path between the print spooler and the port hardware (abstracted from http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms802178.aspx).

From the printer management user interface perspective, a port monitor provides printer ports of a particular type (e.g. Standard TCP/IP port).

• laser printers
• inkjet or bubble jet printers (including wide format inkjet printers that are sometimes referred to as plotters)
• typesetters
• plotters (things that draw lines by dragging a pen over the paper as opposed to by dropping dots as do inkjet and bubble jet printers)
• microfiche or microfilm writers
• dot matrix (impact) printers
• line printers

• mask cutters (have knife blade instead of pen)

1. a computer running some variety of Windows that has one or more printers shared for use by other computers using the Microsoft Network Printing protocol.
2. a computer running some other operating system that implements the Microsoft Network Printing protocol (e.g. Samba running on a UNIX based computer).
3. a computer that implements the LPD service and thus can process print requested from LPR clients

4. a piece of equipment that provides a way of connecting a print device to a network.  Usually, this has a single LAN connector (e.g. RJ45) and one or more physical ports (e.g. parallel or serial) for connecting print devices or that can be installed inside a print device and connects to that device using a proprietary interface.  These devices usually support a variety of network protocols (e.g. lpr/lpd over TCP/IP, Port 9100 or RAW printer protocol over TCP/IP, DLC, IPX/SPX, AppleTalk).  These devices are essentially protocol converters and can communicate with only one computer at a time for each physically attached print device.  They do not provide spooling or print queue management.

5. a piece of equipment (similar to 4 above), but that implements enough of the Microsoft Networking protocols to appear to Windows as if it were a print server of type 1 above.  For some of these devices, you need to install a piece of software that adds a port monitor for port types specific to this device (print server).

When used in articles on this site, print server means type 1or 2 above, print server device means type 4, unless otherwise specifically identified.

Generally, an application can generate print output many times faster than even the fastest print device can actually print.  Without a print spooler service, the application would have to operate at the speed of the print device.

Printer drivers run as part of the print spooler service.  So, a defective printer driver can cause the print spooler service to fail, or in some situations, prevent it from starting at all.  If the print spooler service is not running, you can't print and no printers show in the Printers or Printers and Faxes window.

• local means that this printer object communicates with the print device(s) directly via a local port. 
• network means that this printer object is a proxy for another printer object that is shared from another Windows computer.

Please see port for more information about printer ports.

Windows 9x does not have the concept of local and network printers per se as does NT, 2000 and XP.  With Windows 9x, one creates a (local) printer and associates it with a port that happens to be redirected to a shared printer on another computer.  With Windows NT, 2000 and XP, the normal and recommended approach is to create a network printer when you want to make use of a shared printer.  In some situations, (e.g. the printer driver can not be added to the shared printer as an Additional Driver, you may have to resort to the approach used with Window 9x, but then you have a local type printer object, not a network type printer. 

As the Windows operating system evolved, the printer driver model (basically, the interface that the printer driver is expected to implement and how it is expected to use that interface) also evolved.  Each model is referred to by a Version number.  To see the Version of a particular printer driver, open the Printers (or Printers and Faxes folder), click File, Server Properties and select the Drivers tab.  Just to confuse things, most printer driver builders also apply a "version number" to each driver.  This driver "version number" usually bears no relationship to the printer driver model Version discussed here, but rather indicate what modification level or build that particular driver is.

Version 0 - Windows 95, 98 and ME

Version 1 - no "current" OS uses this model, although it may have been used in versions of Windows NT prior to NT 4.0.

Version 2 - introduced with Windows NT 4.0 and also supported by Windows 2000.  Drivers of this version show up as "Windows NT 4.0 or 2000".

Version 3 - introduced with Windows 2000 and also supported in Windows XP.  Drivers of this version show up as "Windows 2000 or XP".

For example, the following command will invoke the PrintUIEntry function in printui.dll and specify that the printer whose share name is printer available on the print server server be added globally to the target computer target.

rundll32  printui.dll,PrintUIEntry  /ga  /c\\target  /p\\server\printer

The following command will open a window that shows all of the functions and arguments available via PrintUIEntry.

rundll32  printui.dll,PrintUIEntry  /?

1. click Start,
2. Settings (skip this step for Window XP)
3. Printers (Printers and Faxes for Windows XP)
4. right click on the printer and select Properties

Most routers sold for home and small business networking are actually multi-function devices combining some or all of these functions:

• router

• DHCP server

• firewall
• Network Address Translation (NAT)
• switch

• wireless access point

A service may require other services to operate; in this case, the first service is said to be dependent on the these other services.  If a depended upon service isn't running or can not be started, the service(s) that are dependent won't start either.  For example, the Print Spooler service is dependent on the Remote Procedure Call service.