Xerox Corporation

Evral E Bodden

Raymond Sabbagh

May G Onaga

Likang Guo

Timothy Graney

Gregory R Conway

An augmented operating system printing architecture is provided to permit certain print job attributes from a client to have a desired effect on a print server in a networked environment. The augmented operating system printing architecture includes: 1) an augmented print driver for collecting certain print job attributes and for rendering the print job, 2) an augmented print spooler for processing the print job and for directing the print job to a target device, and 3) an agent service to enable print job attributes collected on the client when a print job is initiated to be used by the print server when the print job is processed. The augmented operating system printing architecture also permits print jobs to be sent to multiple recipients. The augmented print spooler creates multiple copies of the print job when it is directed to multiple recipients, one copy for each recipient.

Augmented operating system printing architecture

A method and apparatus for updating print drivers is described. The described system includes a port monitor that monitors the configuration and status of a printer. When changes occur to the configuration of a printer, the port monitor updates a print driver registry on the print server. The port monitor also wakes the print driver on the print server and informs the print driver of the configuration changes. Depending on the client operating system used, a client device connected to the server's shared print queue may either directly read or request the configuration data from the print server. In some client operating systems, the client device may also update a local registry on the client device to reflect the changes in configuration of the printer. The described system allows print drivers to have a consistent interface to printer configuration and status data regardless of which version of the Microsoft Windows Operating System is used by the each.

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Hawthorne, CA, United States of America

Evral E Bodden