Windows 2000 Quick Fixes

Restrict others’ use of your printer at certain times

When you share your printer with other users you probably make it available most, if not all, of the time. However, you might need exclusive access to a printer at certain times of the day, such as when you print a group of daily reports. Or you might have a large print job come up unexpectedly and need to prevent others from printing to the printer while you’re printing your job. A third possibility is that you don’t want anyone to use the printer during a given period, including yourself. For example, you might want to restrict printing to business hours only.

You have two options for restricting access: configure the printer to allow access only during specific times, or completely remove the printer from sharing. Use the former when you want to prevent anyone from using the printer during certain hours and the latter when you want to have exclusive use of the printer.

Restrict printer access times

You can make a printer available all the time or only during certain hours. When a printer is available only during a certain period of time, print jobs are still accepted by the printer’s queue but are not sent to the printer. The jobs remain in the queue until the printer becomes available again. You configure availability through the Advanced page of the printer’s properties:

1. Open the Printers folder, right-click the printer, choose Properties, and click the Advanced tab.

2. Select the Available From option and use the two spin controls ...