How to get Printer Info in .NET?

Question

In the standard PrintDialog there are four values associated with a selected printer: Status, Type, Where, and Comment.

If I know a printer's name, how can I get these values in C# 2.0?

Answer 1

As dowski suggested, you could use WMI to get printer properties. The following code displays all properties for a given printer name. Among them you will find: PrinterStatus, Comment, Location, DriverName, PortName, etc.

using System.Management;

...

string printerName = "YourPrinterName";
string query = string.Format("SELECT * from Win32_Printer WHERE Name LIKE '%{0}'", printerName);

using (ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query))
using (ManagementObjectCollection coll = searcher.Get())
{
    try
    {
        foreach (ManagementObject printer in coll)
        {
            foreach (PropertyData property in printer.Properties)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}: {1}", property.Name, property.Value));
            }
        }
    }
    catch (ManagementException ex)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
    }
}