Limiting when Others Can Use Your Shared Printer

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated November 27, 2017)

If you have a printer physically connected to your computer, Windows allows you to easily share that printer with other people who have access to your network. You may not, however, want to give other people unfettered access to your printer.

For example, you may have a work schedule that requires you to print a critical set of reports at the end of each day. Imagine going to print your reports and finding that someone else is printing a long document or, worse still, your printer ran out of paper and there are several of print jobs stacked up waiting for the arrival of new paper.

In such a scenario, you may want to limit when someone can print to your printer. Windows makes such a restriction easy to enforce. Follow these steps:

  1. Display the Devices and Printers screen. (In Windows 7 click the Start button and then choose Devices and Printers. In Windows 8 and Windows 10 display the Control Panel and then click View Devices and Printers.) This screen shows all the printers to which your system has access.
  2. Right-click on the printer you want to adjust. Windows displays a Context menu.
  3. Choose Printer Properties from the Context menu. (You may see two Properties choices in the Context menu; make sure you choose Printer Properties.) Windows displays the Properties dialog box for the printer.
  4. Make sure the Advanced tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)

    5. Figure 1. The Advanced tab of a printer's Properties dialog box.

  5. Select the Available From radio button.
  6. Adjust the beginning and ending times that denote when you want others to have access to your printer.
  7. Click OK.

Your change is effective immediately. Others on your network will only be able to access your shared printer during the hours you specified in step 6.

 This tip (13263) applies to Windows 7, 8, and 10.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Using Different Shapes in WordArt

You can apply different shapes in WordArt to create different effects.

Discover More

Placing the First Two Words from the Following Page In the Footer

Headers and footers can be used for all sorts of information to help orient your document reader. In fact, Word provides ...

Discover More

Jumping to a Relative Endnote

Endnotes are easy enough to add and accumulate in a document. For this reason, Word makes it easy to jump from one ...

Discover More
More WindowsTips

Deleting a Printer

When you get rid of an old printer and install a new one, you'll want to get rid of the old printer definition maintained ...

Discover More

Understanding XPS Documents

XPS Documents have been around for several years and are now making their way into the native Windows environment. They ...

Discover More

Printing to a PDF File in Windows 10

Want to easily create a PDF file from your favorite program? Windows 10 makes it easy with a built-in PDF printer driver. ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WindowsTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 0 + 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WindowsTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR AUTHORS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2019 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.