Multiple Print Queues for 1 printer

Question

I have a large amount of network printers that were setup with ridiculous names that mean nothing. Since our users are very hesistant to change, I'd like to create a second print queue for each printer and then when users are updated have them point to the new print queues that have nice meaningful names.

All the printers are printing to IPv4 addresses, nothing fancy Windows Server 2008 R2 print services.

Is there any downside to having 2 print queues active for one printer? Obviously eventually I would get rid of the old ones once everyone had been moved over.

Thanks

Solution

I have done this with one printer and two different drivers (one PostScript, and one PCL). It should work about the same for using the same driver with the following caveat: Windows may not show both queues if it determines they are using the same port and driver (see the article below). You can sidestep this problem by creating another IP printer port on the server with the same address.

I'm not sure if this caveat applies if the print server is a different server. It sounded like you were going to use the same server, but it should work fine either way.

MSKB 2015694: Printers installed using the same driver and port on Windows are grouped as one when viewed within Devices and Printers