Printing from Windows to Dynamic ip printer

[Fer]

With Macs and cloud services booming and local it staff are less and lIess common with small company's i'm looking to find a way to install network MFD's in a plug and play way. For that i want to set the MFD to Dynamic IP adress and install the printer on clients in a way it keeps working even if the MFD receives a new IP.

I found that mac's can use Bonjour to install a printer and that it rely's mdns technique to connect to the printer regardless of its ip adress. But i don't have any how i can setup such thing with Windows. If i can make work in a Windows 7 environment i'd be happy, forget XP.

mdns printerport.

[TheOwl]

Re: Printing from Windows to Dynamic ip printer

As long as DNS is correctly setup with in the network, then you can achieve this with out an issue.

Every node on the network will have a DNS Host Name, so you just need to know what the Host name is of the printer, or change it to something a bit more friendly as they come out of the factory with obscure names, and create a Standard TCP/IP Port using the Host name instead of the IP address.

You can also install Bonjour for Windows, but I wouldn't recommend it. I prefer to use DHCP reservations which stops devices from changing their IP address any way and if I want to get really smart, then I can create a static DNS (A) record to the machine which resolves something like "Bob" to the IP address of the copier.

[rthonpm]

Re: Printing from Windows to Dynamic ip printer

Printing to a DHCP printer often makes the acronym stand for Doesn't Hardly Connect Properly. That said, like TheOwl mentions it can be done by using FQDN as the port name instead of the IP. If there's any latency in the DHCP server you can run into issues until the DNS resolver cache is flushed on the server housing the print drivers (this is much more common if you have two different servers doing different roles instead of having DHCP and the printers shard on the same server) as it may not always update the IP association in time.

Bonjour for Windows should be avoided as it can cause issues with some software. I had a design firm that had its Creative Suite functionality ground to nothing thanks to a Bonjour installation through iTunes. Beyond that, it's also just an additional variable that tries to import functionality already available in a Windows network.

[Fer]

Re: Printing from Windows to Dynamic ip printer

The idea is to configure this printer plug and play on the clients in such way een noob user could just buy a new modem/router with a default config and completly other ip range, no reservations and dns entry's and still be able to print. Where talking SOHO customers here.

Apple uses MDNS for this and Microsoft developed SSDP for this. Any experiance with either products?

[Jules Winfield]

Re: Printing from Windows to Dynamic ip printer

I agree with what the Owl says about DHCP reservations. The way most DHCP servers handle reservations is by MAC address. Since this never changes unless the NIC goes bad and you have to swap it out, it is essentially using a static IP without having to manually enter it on the printer. This is by far my favorite approach...

[TheOwl]

Re: Printing from Windows to Dynamic ip printer

If you are talkingabout basic networks that only use a modem/router, then the modem/router is the DHCP and DNS server.

Again, you can the just use the DNS Host name of the copier within the print driver. If the modem gets changed out, then the new modem will register the DNS name of the copier so that other devices on the network can resolve the name to the IP address.

I did a quick read on the SSDP and this was intergrated into the UPnP protocol. This is probably going to add further complications for your users.

If you want to provide dumb proof, snapshot the drivers so that they are preconfigured for your customers network and provide the installable on a USB drive with a cheat sheet on how to run the installer.

[RyanPacific]

Re: Printing from Windows to Dynamic ip printer

The easiest way I can think of would be to use NetBIOS naming if your MFP supports it because it is a broadcast protocol and you won't have to rely on a DNS server. It can be slow on large networks but in SOHO situations it shouldn't be a problem. Just set a simple a memorable name and use it in the port settings for your print driver, make sure your MFP supports NetBIOS broadcast.