Moving printers from Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2012 R2

Question

Currently we are hosting multiple printers (different brand & models) on a Windows Server 2012 Print Server.

On this server, printers are added manually using Windows Print Management Tool & then shared with users (manually added on each system) or the UNC path is forwarded to users that could be used to add printers manually into their system.

Now, we are installing new Print Servers (running Windows Server 2012 R2). We will move some printers from old servers to the new Print Server & also want to map/redirect users to use these new printers.

What are the step by step instructions to add all printers to the new Print Servers and to map/redirect printers that are already setup on the users workstations to use the new print servers?

Solution

i'm not sure about a step by step but.....

For the Printer Migration

Server 2012 Print Management tool supports an export feature, this will export the printers, print queues, printer drivers to a print migration file. just go to print management > right click your print server > choose export. then take the file to you new print server and do an import.

you can access the print migration directly as well see the link below:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc773832(v=ws.10).aspx

another option is to use the windows server migration tools:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd379545(v=ws.10).aspx

here is a print migration guide:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd379488(v=ws.10).aspx

as for redirecting the users existing printers, are the computers domain joined?

if so then I would use Group Policy Preferences to map new printers to their computers, set the default printer and remove the old ones.