Our existing print server for our 8 printers is a Win 2003 server that is slowly being decommissioned. We want to move print services off this server but we want to move them to the right place. I don't want to make the domain controller a print server, nor do I want to use any of the other existing Windows Server 2008 R2 application servers. There are 2 other Windows Server 2003 machines that could be used.
Would a dedicated Hyper-V instance running Windows Server 2008 R2 be a waste of a Windows Server 2008 R2 license?
It seems to me that a lot of companies in our position run print services on the nearest piece of scrap instead. What are the main advantages to putting the services on Windows Server 2008 R2?
Best Answer
Mostly print services performance is not so much of a concern. It would make little sense to have a dedicated print server unless your printing system is taking such a load of print jobs that it would be either bottlenecking or starving other running services otherwise, or you need some kind of administrative separation so you could give "the printer admin guy" a local administrative account to manage everything by himself.
There is not an awful lot which has changed at the core, but there are some new features which might come handy in some scenarios. The "What's new in Print and Document Service" document lists the changes in more detail: