When the printer is on a local port like \\servername\printer name, it is
really a "Local Printer" that happens to have its output redirected to a
printer shared from another computer. The printer's Port is a Local Port on
the client (local) computer and has no relationship to the Port used on the
print server to communicate with the physical print device. The local Port
Name is exactly the UNC name of the shared printer.
In that situation, there is a complete printer object locally that has a
name and properties. This means, among other things:
1. the display name of the printer can be changed on the local computer and
is independent of what the name is on the print server
2. which printer driver to use is set on the local computer and can be
changed (although serious or subtle problems can happen if an inappropriate
or incompatible printer driver is chosen). This can sometimes be useful;
for example, you may have an application that can only use a Generic/Text
Only printer driver (perhaps an old DOS application); in this case, you can
configure the Local Printer with the Generic/ Text Only printer driver and
redirect the print to some network printer (e.g. a laser printer).
3. the properties of the printer (e.g. whether or not there is a duplexing
unit) can be (have to be) set on the local computer and are indpendent of
what is configured on the server
When "point and print" (i.e. a proper "Network Printer" is in use):
1. the properties you see on the client computer are actually the properties
of the printer on the server and can only be changed by user accounts that
are authorized to do so on the print server (e.g. the server
administrators); this includes the printer name, share name, driver etc.
2. the printer name on the client (local) computer can not be changed and is
always "printername on print server name".
--
Bruce Sanderson MVP Printing
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders
It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.
