A feature that gets often overlooked is the ability to limit the hours that a printer is available to users. Let’s say you don’t want Al in Accounting to be able to print out flyers for his party on the high quality color printer after hours. You can lock down your printer during certain hours in Windows XP and Windows Vista. You will of course need administrator rights to do this.

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Printer.

2. Right-click on the icon for your printer and select Properties.

3. Click on the Advanced tab.

4. Select the option for Available from and you can set the hours you would like to keep the printer available to other users.

5. Click OK when done.