This is only a guidance for a scenario, your actual environment and configuration can and probably will be different.
General
This article will help you, the administrator, with the first steps of configuring Print&Share on a local administrator PC for doing a roll out of the Print&Share Desktop version to multiple clients.
The following steps will describe the Print&Share preparation process before doing a roll-out.
The idea is that we first install Print&Share on an administrator’s PC and configure/activate the software properly.
Once everything is configured correctly on this administrator PC, we’ll use these configured settings to create an MSI file to roll-out to the clients.
This modified MSI file will contain the default settings and profiles configured on the administrator PC.
This article will also specify some details on how to publish and update existing Print&Share profiles.
Steps to follow
Follow these steps in the correct order. They guide you with the installation, configuration, roll-out and administration of Print&Share.
We also give attention to the publishing process of profiles.
- Installation of Print&Share on the administrator PC
- Company and User information
- Register and Activate Print&Share
- Complete the General Configuration of Print&Share
- Creating and configuring profiles
- Security and protection
- Preparing the profiles, settings and publish configuration
- Create an MSI installation
- Roll out the Print&Share installation on the clients
- Publishing profiles as an administrator
1. Installation of Print&Share on the administrator PC
Download your Print&Share software from www.printandshare.info.
The installation of Print&Share on a desktop PC is very easy. Follow the installation wizard or use this documentation site for further instructions.
2. Company and User information
Once Print&Share is installed you can start the application.
Go to the [General Configuration] of Print&Share and select the [Company and User information] form.
The [General Configuration] itself can be found by clicking the [Change] button in the upper right corner when you just show the Print&Share user interface.
Fill in the company details (address, contact details, …) and specify also the company logo.
In general, filling in correct company information also helps for faster lookup for the support team.
3. Register and Activate Print&Share
You will be prompted in Print&Share to register the software. If this was not the case, you can always execute Step 2. Company User information and click the [Register again] button in the [Company and User information].
After the registration process you will be able to activate your software. This is a necessary step in the process because the reference code(s) used in the activation are also needed for the activation of Print&Share on the clients.
Go to the [Activation] tab page in the [General Configuration] and activate Print&Share. It is important to register and activate Print&Share before configuring. As the trial version is a Corporate desktop version, it will be lacking the (Enterprise) features unless activated correctly.
4. Complete the General Configuration of Print&Share
When you use Print&Share for the first time an initial configuration takes places.
Follow the step by step wizard where you can enter the company information, where you can specify the default printer, configure the email settings…
You can change or complete the global configuration in Print&Share when you click on the [Change] button in the top right corner of Print&Share and click on the [Global Configuration] button.
5. Creating and configuring profiles
Print&Share allows to user to create profiles. Each profile consists of one or more output channels.
When you create a profile with a print channel it is important that you use a printer driver which is available for all the users or clients you will be targeting for the roll out.
Because when client PCs will use Print&Share, the Print&Share profiles will use the printers configured here. So these printers must be accessible for the clients.
6. Security and Protection
It is recommended that only the administrator modifies or adds profiles, therefor Print&Share configuration and profiles can be protected.
Add users to Print&Share and activate the global security or protect profiles on an individual base.
Make sure you have configured the Default permissions settings correctly, as guests (unauthenticated users) will use these settings.
7. Preparing the profiles, settings and publish configuration
By default the Print&Share profiles are stored locally on the computer. You can add or modify profiles when you click on the [Change] button in the main window to open the [Profiles] dialog.
Once the Print&Share profiles are fully configured, functional and tested on a local pc, we need to store them on a central location instead of on our local pc. This is done by changing a path to another directory. Because once we create a customized MSI package for a roll out, we need to make sure that clients will all use the same profiles from that central location.
[General settings] can be changed in the [General Configuration].
To prepare the publishing method open the [General settings] page in the [General Configuration] and click [Edit] from the [Location of the profiles:] to change the location of the stored profiles.
For example:
\\MyCentralServer\Winking\Print&Share\DispatcherConfigs.xmlSelect a shared folder on a server, which is accessible for all clients and click on save.
If there is already a [Profiles] file at the chosen location you will have the option to overwrite this file with your own profiles or update your profiles with those at the chosen location:
The final step is to configure how to save the profiles.
There are two options that you can choose with the radio button.
These two options are important for Windows Terminal Server/Remote Desktop Services or if multiple users use the same PC with a different user account.
For terminal server, this is because profiles also have to be made available for all clients that log on to the server.
You can either say this setting is for all users on this computer, thus using the same Profiles-file for all. Or you can configure a different location and a different Profiles-file for the other users.
- [Each user on this computer uses his/her own profiles file.]
If another user logs in on the current Terminal Server or the current PC, their settings and profiles are not changed. - [Use chosen file for all users on this computer.]
This is the recommended setting when all users on that computer must use the same profiles (e.g. from a central central accessible location or shared folder).
Select the default option: [Use chosen file for all users on this computer.].
VERY IMPORTANT for us is the checkbox: [Use common profiles and combine with individual profiles and settings]
This checkbox enables publishing!
This checkbox makes sure clients can sync profile updates and allows administrators to publish profiles.
The checkbox gives the administrator the ability to force the clients to download or update (sync) their local profiles with the current profiles from this (central) location. Profiles will be synchronized with the central profiles at start up.
This is exactly what we need when we later need to modify a profile and publish a new version to the clients.
8. Create an MSI installation
Please see the Installation Configuration documentation on how to create a customized MSI installation for your roll out.
The idea is to modify the Print&Share MSI file with default settings (e.g. company name, set of profiles, activation key, ...).
An administrator does this by preparing and configuring Print&Share on his local pc with these default settings, configuring the profiles for the clients, etc...
This is what we have done in the previous steps in this guide.
Next with the Installation Configurator you load in these Print&Share settings and profiles. Additionally other default settings can be configured.
These default Print&Share settings are injected in the MSI file.
When doing a roll out with that modified MSI file, all user will now have the settings you configured in Print&Share on your local administrator PC.
9. Roll out the Print&Share installation on the clients
Distribute the modified MSI installation to the clients.
This task is for the IT administrator and will be different in every environment.
10. Publishing profiles as an administrator
If you have configured Print&Share to use the same profile file for all users and you are forcing all users to update the profiles you will now see a new feature in the [Profiles] overview:
How to publish or update profiles?
- Go to the [Profiles] overview.
- Click on the [Publish] button to select which profiles must be updated or added to all the clients.
- Select the profiles that you want to update or publish and click [Publish].
If the Print&Share application on the client is restarted or a user boots the pc and Print&Share is started, there will be a check to see if profiles have been updated. If they have been changed, the changed profiles will be downloaded to the client.
When the central publish location is not available, the users will continue working with their locally downloaded profiles and settings version. That’s why there is an extra ‘DispatcherSyncConfigs.xml’ file.
Note:
To see the Publish button you need to have the Admin security setting when using Protection.
Make sure that your clients don't see the Publish button, so that they don't have the Admin permission and Print&Share protection is configured correctly.