Eventing and Print Jobs

Question

Hey all! I am attempting to write a script that will collect information about print jobs on a print server and write the data to a database. I am trying to get data on print job owner, printer name, whether it was color or grayscale, number of pages and
number of copies.
 I am running into a problem finding a method to collect events for print jobs. I have attempted to subscribe to creation and modification events of the Win32_PrintJob class, which is ok but doesn't seem very accurate about details like pages printed
and color/grayscale. I next attempted to respond to these events by using Get-WinEvent each time the event fires and then using the JobId property of the event to scan the PrintService log for matching 307 and 805 events. However, I have found that the Win32_PrintJob
JobId does not seem to match the document id in the event log entries.
I scrapped that idea and instead attempted to collect .NET events for the NTEventLog class but this only seems to work with the traditional logs such as system, security and application.
I suppose I could just scan the event logs on a regular basis and collect print job information that way, but I was really looking to collect and log this info in real time rather than just looping every so often. Has anyone else tried eventing for any of
these classes? Is it possible there is another .NET class I could subscribe to that would provide me with details of incoming print jobs? Am I going about this entirely the wrong way?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Matt,
Maybe you can try the .NET class for printing:
Function Get-PrintJobs
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Return the list of jobs on the current printer
.DESCRIPTION
This function returns a list of pending jobs on the specified print server for a given queue
.PARAMETER ComputerName
Name of the print sever
.PARAMETER Name
Name of the print queue
.EXAMPLE
Get-PrintJobs -ComputerName ps -Name HPLJ5000
.LINK
http://scripts.patton-tech.com/wiki/PowerShell/PrintServerManagement#Get-PrintJobs
#>
Param
$ComputerName,
$Name
Begin
$Host.Runspace.ThreadOptions = "ReuseThread"
if ((Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem).OSArchitecture -eq '64-bit')
$SystemPrinting = Get-ChildItem "$($env:systemroot)\assembly\GAC_64\System.Printing"
$SystemPrintingFile = Get-ChildItem -Name "*system.printing*" -Recurse -Path $SystemPrinting.FullName
$SystemPrintingFile = "$($SystemPrinting.FullName)\$($SystemPrintingFile)"
else
$SystemPrinting = Get-ChildItem "$($env:systemroot)\assembly\GAC_32\System.Printing"
$SystemPrintingFile = Get-ChildItem -Name "*system.printing*" -Recurse -Path $SystemPrinting.FullName
$SystemPrintingFile = "$($SystemPrinting.FullName)\$($SystemPrintingFile)"
$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
Try
Add-Type -Path $SystemPrintingFile
$PrintServer = New-Object System.Printing.PrintServer("\\$($ComputerName)")
$PrintQueue = $PrintServer.GetPrintQueue($Name)
$PrintJobs = $PrintQueue.GetPrintJobInfoCollection()
Catch
Write-Error $Error[0].Exception
Break
Process
End
Return $PrintJobs
Refer to:
A print management library
If there is anything else regarding this issue, please feel free to post back.
If you have any feedback on our support, please click here.
Best Regards,
Anna Wang