Installing the Print Server Windows Feature and Adding a Shared Printer with PowerShell

Overview

I recently bought my first home printer, a HP Deskjet 2755e. This is a great starter All-in-one printer for the house. As with any new piece of equipment, I wanted to experiment with it. I work shared printers and print servers at work but never configured one myself, so this fifty-dollar piece of equipment became a part of my lab.

PrintManagement PowerShell Module

Sure enough there is the PrintManagement PowerShell module that allows you to create, read, update and delete printers and associated configurations. To create a shared printer on the printer server, you need to download and add the drivers, printer port and the printer name.

Downloading and Installing Printer Drivers

Depending on the manufacturer, you need to go the website and download printer drivers. In this lab, because I am using an HP printer, I download and install my driver from here. You need to locate the inf files because we will be using the PnPUtitl. The INF file is a text file with a set of instructions to import driver packages to your machine. Once you locate the INF file for your printer, copy the full path and set it as a variable.

PowerShell Script to Add Shared Printer

Script parameters

For the script we will be using four global parameters, we will also specify a global variable $featureName in the script. This is set to “Print-Server”, the Windows Server role to be added.

param (
    [string] $printerName,
    [string] $driverPath,
    [string] $driverName,
    [string] $printerIp
)

$featureName = "Print-Server"

Helper Functions

Install the Print-Server feature with PowerShell

Now Let’s create a function to install the Print-Server Windows feature if it is not installed yet. We will be using the ServerManager PowerShell Module to install this feature. This is a helper function invoked if the value of the install state property of the Print-Server feature is not “Installed”.

function InstallPrintServerFeature {
    Write-Host "Installing $featureName feature" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    try{
        Install-WindowsFeature -Name $featureName
        if(Get-WindowsFeature -Name $featureName){
            Write-Host "$featureName installed successfully" -ForegroundColor Green
        }
    }catch{
        Write-Error "Failed to install $featureName : $($_.Exception.Message)" 
    }
}

Restart the Server if Print-Server is Pending a Restart

This helper function restarts the machine by prompting the user for confirmation. If the user inputs “y” or “yes”, the server will restart, else it will exit the script. This function is invoked if the install state of the Print Server feature is “InstallPending”. Just a note: by rebooting the machine you will have to manually run the script again. You can certainly create a scheduled task like I did in this blog post, but this script doesn’t need to be run on a schedule.

function RestartServer($state) {

    $input = Read-Host "$featureName is in the $state state and requires a restart. To restart press (y or yes)"

    if( -not ($input.ToLower() -in @("y", "yes"))){
        Write-Host "You have chose to not restart $env:hostname at this time. Please re-run script at your convenience. Exit" -ForegroundColor Yellow; EXIT
    }else{
        Write-Host "Restarting $env:hostname" -ForegroundColor Yellow
        Restart-Computer -Force
    }
}

Invoke Helper Function based on the Install State

I created a function with some of the Install states that I wanted to handle and used a switch statement with the condition being the value of the Install state returned from Get-WindowsFeature. Based on the value returned, I would invoke a helper function or write output to the console. I called this function in a while loop with the condition that while the install state was not equal to “Installed” then call the function.

function performActionFromState($state) {
    switch ($state) {
        "Available" { InstallPrintServerFeature }
        "InstallPending" { RestartServer -state $_ }
        "Installed" { Write-Host "$featureName is installed." -ForegroundColor Green }
        "Removed" { write-host "Please add the $featureName feature" -ForegroundColor Yellow}
    }
}

while ((get-windowsFeature -name Print-Server).InstallState -ne "Installed") {
    performActionFromState -state (get-windowsFeature -name Print-Server).InstallState
}

Use PnPUtil to add the Driver Package to the Driver Store

This part of the script uses PnPUtil to add the driver package – or the INF file we located when we installed the drivers from the vendor’s website – to the driver store on the Windows machine. The default driver store path is C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore.

$proc = Start-process pnputil.exe -ArgumentList "-i", "-a", $driverPath -Wait -PassThru
$proc.WaitForExit()

if($proc.HasExited -and ($proc.ExitCode -eq 0)){
    Write-Host "Drivers are installed"
}

Add the Printer Driver, Create the Port, and Add a Printer on a Windows using PowerShell

This code will wrap up the script by using the PrintManagement PowerShell module to add the print driver from the driver store, create a printer port using the IP address of the printer, and then add the printer to the Windows machine using the name from the global parameter. We also use a bit of error handling to see if something went wrong during the invocation.

try{
    write-host "Adding printer driver $driverName" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Add-PrinterDriver -Name $driverName
    Write-Host "$driverName Driver was successfully added." -ForegroundColor Green
}catch{
    Write-Error $_.Exception.Message
}

try{
    $isValidIp = Test-Connection $printerIp -Count 2 -Quiet
    if( -not $isValidIp){
        throw "$printerIp is not pingable."
    }
    Write-Host "Adding port $printerIp" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Add-PrinterPort -Name $printerIp -PrinterHostAddress $printerIp
    Write-Host "Port $printerIp was successfully added." -ForegroundColor Green

    Write-Host "Adding $printerName" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Add-printer -Name $printerName `
        -DriverName $driverName `
        -PortName $printerIp `
        -Published `
        -Shared
    Write-Host "$printerName was added successfully" -ForegroundColor Green

}catch{
    Write-Error $_.Exception.Message
}

Running the Script

This is how you would run the script to automate the process of adding a shared printer.

.\printerScript.ps1 -printerName "Home Printer" -driverPath "C:\HP Universal Print Driver\pcl6-x64-7.1.0.25570\hpcu270u.inf" -driverName "HP Universal Printing PCL 6" -printerIp "10.55.1.10"

Full Script

param (
    [string] $printerName,
    [string] $driverPath,
    [string] $driverName,
    [string] $printerIp
)

$featureName = "Print-Server"
function InstallPrintServerFeature {
    Write-Host "Installing $featureName feature" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    try{
        Install-WindowsFeature -Name $featureName
        if(Get-WindowsFeature -Name $featureName){
            Write-Host "$featureName installed successfully" -ForegroundColor Green
        }
    }catch{
        Write-Error "Failed to install $featureName : $($_.Exception.Message)" 
    }
}

function RestartServer($state) {

    $input = Read-Host "$featureName is in the $state state and requires a restart. To restart press (y or yes)"

    if( -not ($input.ToLower() -in @("y", "yes"))){
        Write-Host "You have chose to not restart $env:hostname at this time. Please re-run script at your convenience. Exit" -ForegroundColor Yellow; EXIT
    }else{
        Write-Host "Restarting $env:hostname" -ForegroundColor Yellow
        Restart-Computer -Force
    }
}

function performActionFromState($state) {
    switch ($state) {
        "Available" { InstallPrintServerFeature }
        "InstallPending" { RestartServer -state $_ }
        "Installed" { Write-Host "$featureName is installed." -ForegroundColor Green }
        "Removed" { write-host "Please add the $featureName feature" -ForegroundColor Yellow}
    }
}

while ((get-windowsFeature -name Print-Server).InstallState -ne "Installed") {
    performActionFromState -state (get-windowsFeature -name Print-Server).InstallState
}

$proc = Start-process pnputil.exe -ArgumentList "-i", "-a", $driverPath -Wait -PassThru
$proc.WaitForExit()

if($proc.HasExited -and ($proc.ExitCode -eq 0)){
    Write-Host "Drivers are installed"
}

try{
    write-host "Adding printer driver $driverName" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Add-PrinterDriver -Name $driverName
    Write-Host "$driverName Driver was successfully added." -ForegroundColor Green
}catch{
    Write-Error $_.Exception.Message
}

try{
    $isValidIp = Test-Connection $printerIp -Count 2 -Quiet
    if( -not $isValidIp){
        throw "$printerIp is not pingable."
    }
    Write-Host "Adding port $printerIp" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Add-PrinterPort -Name $printerIp -PrinterHostAddress $printerIp
    Write-Host "Port $printerIp was successfully added." -ForegroundColor Green

    Write-Host "Adding $printerName" -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Add-printer -Name $printerName `
        -DriverName $driverName `
        -PortName $printerIp `
        -Published `
        -Shared
    Write-Host "$printerName was added successfully" -ForegroundColor Green

}catch{
    Write-Error $_.Exception.Message
}

Conclusion

In this PowerShell script, we automate the setup of a print server on Windows. It begins by ensuring the Print Server feature is installed, prompting for a server restart if necessary. Next, it handles the installation of printer drivers, ensuring they are added successfully. The script then checks the connectivity of the printer IP address, adds a printer port, and finally adds the printer itself with specified settings. This script streamlines the setup process, providing a systematic approach for configuring printers on Windows servers.