PrinterShare® Server Installation

This installation is tested only on Windows XP. Other operating systems may not be supported.

Prerequisites

  1. Internet Information Services
  2. Microsoft SQL Server 2005
  3. .NET Framework 2.0

Feature description

You have a choice to install or skip following features:

PrinterShare Server files

Actions performed by the installer:

  1. Unpack application files to specified directory
  2. Modify "web.config" file to include specified SMTP server

IIS Registration

Actions performed by the installer:

  1. Setup Default Web Site in IIS to represent PrinterShare installation directory, give Read access to it, allow to execute Scripts and Executables
  2. Create a Web Application for this site
  3. Register ".aspx" and ".asmx" file extensions to be executed by .NET Framework 2.0

To perform manually: create standard ASP.NET web site and set home directory to your installation folder.

SQL Server Database Setup

Actions performed by the installer:

  1. Create "PrinterAnywhere" database on the specified SQL Server
  2. Create tables and indexes for that database
  3. Create (MachineName)\ASPNET login and grant "sysadmin" rights to it
  4. Modify "web.config" file to include connection string for created database

To perform manually: perform all steps; for step 2 locate "database.sql" in your installation folder and run it as SQL query on your database.

Troubleshooting

  1. Open http://server name/readme.html in a web browser, where server name is the name of the IIS web site you just configured (localhost by default). If there is an error, IIS Default Web Site was configured incorrectly or not started.
  2. Open http://server name/paservice.asmx in a web browser. You should receive the list of available methods in the webservice. If you get "Server Application Unavailable" error instead, check Event Viewer for more information.
  3. Run PrinterShare console. When prompted to login, click "Options". In "Server" edit box, enter your server name. Click "Create new account". You should be able to create an account and immediately start working with it. If you receiving server errors at this step: 1) re-check your IIS and database configuration; 2) check logs in "log" folder under your installation directory; 3) make sure yur SMTP is working correctly (logs should contain mail-related errors if it doesn't).
  4. Notice the user info bar on top of console window. "Subscription" should be "Premium".

Client Compatibility

PrinterShare server version 2.2 is compatible with following PrinterShare clients:

Supporting higher versions of clients may require higher version of the server. This package includes compatible client for Windows to test your system.


Administration and Maintenance

Distributing PrinterShare Client

Users of your PrinterShare server will need a way to obtain compatible PrinterShare client installer. You can distribute it in any convinient way. One of the ways is to provide download from the same local web server you just set up for PrinterShare server components. This package already includes a download page, which will be available as "http://server name/client.html" to users in your network. If you plan to use it, take the PrinterShare console installer included in this package, rename it to "PrinterShare.exe" and place in PrinterShare server root, next to client.html.

Note:

  1. You need to set IIS web site Execute Permissions to "Scripts only", otherwise it will try to run the exe file on server instead of providing a download.
  2. Your users are supposed to set correct server address when logging in into your local network. See "Troubleshooting" for description of login process.

Automatic Client Updates

PrinterShare client has a built-in ability to check for updates, enabled by default. Web address for such check can be configured on server. See Web.config, keys "update-server" and "update-url". You could configure the address to download.printershare.com, but that is not recommended, because your users can update to client versions incompatible with your server. Instead, it is recommended to maintain automatic updates through your local server and update clients on that server when you are sure they are compatible.

The address in "update-url" points to version.xml in your installation directory. This file contains update keys for currently available platforms. If you don't provide an installer for certain platform, you can remove the key. Or remove all keys, if you don't want to provide automatic updates. Here are the key attributes.

Trial version

This application can be freely used on trial basis. This means that it will work for 30 days, and then stop working. You also have a limitation of having no more than 100 users on the trial version.

If there will be more than 100 users in trial version, new users will receive an error message when trying to register on your server. After 30 days, users will receive "Trial period expired" error when trying to print on your server.

To make PrinterShare Server fully functional, you must buy personal user code. Refer to www.printershare.com for the details. When you'll receive the code, locate "Web.config" file in PrinterShare Server installation directory and add following entries:

<appSettings>
  ...
  <add key="username" value="your user name"/>
  <add key="usercode" value="your user code"/>
  ...
</appSettings>

Newsgroup

As a PrinterShare server administrator, you need to stay in touch with published server updates. To do that, apply for membership in printershare-server newsgroup. The group only delivers announcements about the product updates; if you have questions or comments, contact technical support instead.