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MSCS Activate/Activate Clustering Print Services

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by shawnyongfc 1 view

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Hi All

I'm running microsoft culstering with Activate/Activate configurations. 2 servers connect to a storage.

i've setup print spooler on each cluster group. Both print spooler works fine, but when fail over, some of the printer did not appear.

All printers appear when fail back.

Any additional setting needed to have Activate/Activate Print Services?

Thanks in advance

7 replies

by maniacman

The reason you don't seen the printers online is because when the resource fails over to the other node, it doesn't know where the queue folder is and is most likely pulling the local queue from the C: drive, which is the default location for the spooler, and thus won't see the printers tied to the cluster resource that's migrating over. Look at the properties of the print server and make sure you relocate the queue from the local C: drive to the shared storage and set the location accordingly.

Anytime you cluster anything, the data that you're trying to make highly available, such as DHCP database, print spooler queue, SQL database, etc, must reside on shared storage.

This is a common mistake made by many, even me, so don't feel bad. We get so caught up in the complex stuff we forget to check for the obvious.

DOH! We all have our Homer Simpson moments :^0

by shawnyongfc

Hi ManiacMan

Thanks for the reply, yes the drivers are pointing to C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers

Does it mean i just need to copy the "Drivers" folder to the storage and create a file share resource on the cluster, point the print$ share to the new location and i'll be able to see the printers?

Any registry change needed?

Homer :)

by shawnyongfc

one more thing, if i add new printer drivers will the drivers copy to c:\...drivers or storage:\drivers??? or it copy to "print$" folder share.

by shawnyongfc

Good news is i'm able to move one of the driver folder the storage and create a share print$ in the cluster.
Bad news is when i try to do the same on the other server, i was prompted duplicate share name, when i try to create the cluster share resource with print$.

Anyway we can change the printer share to print1$ and print2$ so that the cluster can accept the diffrenet share name.

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