Basic printing help needed!

[3dawgs]

Can someone please explain to me how Citrix printing works? Here's my scenario:

A new user just started working here a few weeks ago, and I installed the ICA Client on her laptop. She's complaining that she cannot print in Citrix and sure enough, I plop down in front of her laptop and don't see any of my network printers in her list.

I know for a fact that I've installed a couple of my network printers on her laptop, because she runs other non-Citrix software and can print to the network printers just fine. I tried pulling up the list of printers while sitting in front of the Citrix server itself, but all I see are the \\Client\PC115\Sales_Laser, and so on.

I'm right smack in the middle of a huge project now that requires just about all of my time, so I simply cannot spend any real time figuring out how Citrix works. Maybe when I'm done I can take a class or something, but for now I need a quick lesson. Can someone give me the lowdown?

Thanks a lot for any help, really.

 

[pgaliardo]

Quick answer is that the drivers for the printer also have to be installed on the Citrix Server itself so that it can "map" the drivers. If you look in the event viewer of the Citrix Server after this user has logged on, you'll probably see errors similar to "Could not map client printer HPxxx because the driver is not installed on the server." I forget the exact error - but you'll know when you see it.

 

[3dawgs]

I've got about 20 other Citrix users in my office that are able to print to my network printers. The drivers should be installed on the Citrix server already, otherwise nobody would be printing. I haven't checked Event Viewer yet, but I'll do that next.

One thing that I did do was go to the Citrix server itself and login as her. Sure enough, I don't see any of my network printers there. (It normally stays logged on as Administrator) I'm slowly getting the idea of how this stuff works (I think), but I can't figure out why I've never needed to do this with any other users before. If I have to log back on as her on the Citrix server and create those network printers from scratch, I guess I'll do it...but it just doesn't seem right.

Would it matter that her laptop OS is XP Tablet Edition?

 

[pgaliardo]

Sorry, didn't realize you had other Citrix users accessing the printers. So you're right, the drivers must be installed on the Citrix servers if they can print.

What version of Citrix are you running? I know in PS 4.0 and 4.5 you have to create printer policies and then you have to apply the policy to the users. Otherwise, the printers won't get auto created for them.

It was different in Citrix XP but I forget how to set it up.

I don't think the OS should make a difference.

 

[3dawgs]

I'm running Metaframe 1.8. Since I haven't needed to mess around with printer policies or anything before, there's got to be something else going on with her laptop. It's not a rights issue on the Citrix server, I checked that.

Thanks for your replies, btw. At the moment, this Citrix is a major pain.

 

[pgaliardo]

I haven't dealt with 1.8 in a while. Have you tried to have one of the users that DO normally get their printers, log onto the problem user's laptop and see if the printers get created. At least you should be able to narrow down to a user profile issue or the laptop iteslf.

 

[oisnds]

Most likely issue is the driver names on the laptop. To map the drivers the driver names must match exactly or be associated to each other via the WTSPRNT.INF or WTSUPRN.INF. Say the user has the driver name "LaserJet 4" and the driver on the server is "HP LaserJet 4". Citrix will not be able to associate the drivers to each other. Placing an entry in the WTSUPRN.INF file that says "HP LaserJet 4" = "LaserJet 4" will allow Citrix to map the driver and the user to print. The reason the other users can print is probably because the printer drivers are named differently in different OSs and their names match.

 

[3dawgs]

Thanks so much for the tips, guys. I'm rapidly approaching the end of my big project that I mentioned in my first post, and when I'm done I'll dive headfirst into your suggestions. I'll post back one way or the other once I've had some time to play around with it.

Much appreciated!

 

[3dawgs]

Hi. It's me again, back from having completed my big project. Now that I'm finished, I can get back to the task of figuring out how this Citrix printing works.

I reread everything from my original posts to refresh the brain, and went to the laptop to implement "oisnds" suggestion about the driver name. Rather than edit the WTSUPRN.INF file, I simply changed the driver to match the driver on a working machine, and voila'...now I'm printing. Kudos to you, my friend.

Now, it wouldn't be me without a follow-up question, so here goes. When I'm on the Citrix server itself and looking at the printers, all I see are the client-created printers, i.e. "Client\Freds_Laptop#\\\Server_name\Sales_LJ2". I don't see the locally created network printer. I ask this because: the driver is the wrong one. The wrong one! The printer is an HP 4050, but the driver that I just installed on the laptop is an HP Laserjet5. Don't ask, I have no idea. I inherited this nightmare. That's why my laptop wasn't printing, cuz it was using the wrong driver...or should I say it was using the correct driver, just not the same wrong one that the Citrix server is using.

How do I update the Citrix server's driver, when all I see are those client printers?

 

[enigma99]

3dawgs,
Looking at the previous posts....it looks like you are using MF 1.8...correct?...

If so, then bad news for you my friend. You will have to log into all of the Citrix servers and update the driver from there. But you have to make sure that the print driver is not in use because it will throw up an error message if you try to update it while in use.

To update the printer driver just go to "Start-Settings-Printers-File-Server Properties" Drivers tab and hit ADD.

If you had XP and up...you could do that on one server and then replicate it to your other Citrix servers.

Hope that helps.

 

[3dawgs]

The good news is that I've only got one Citrix server, so making changes to it is no biggy. However...

I did like you asked and checked out the server properties, and I've discovered that I actually have about every HP printer driver already installed on this thing. I can only guess the reason for this is that if someone wants to print from Citrix to their locally installed Deskjet (via LPT1), the Citrix server would need to have that driver installed. I'm catching on, I think.

But now I must ask about the driver-name thing I just changed on my laptop. If the Citrix server does indeed have the 4050 driver already installed, why did I need to change the laptop's driver to Laserjet 5P in order to make it work?

 

[oisnds]

Hi, me again.
Microsoft in their infinite wisdom uses different names for the same printer driver in the different operating systems. The server, running say, Windows 2000 will use one name and the laptop running Windows XP will use a different name for the same printer's driver.
The only way Citrix or Terminal Server has of matching them up is to have them named exactly the same or to have the association I mentioned setup on the server.
When you changed the laptop's driver to Laserjet 5P, it matched the driver name on the server, the 4050 names don't seem to have matched. The printers are similar enough that either driver will work for most things.
Hope I didn't just confuse the issue more.

 

[3dawgs]

You rock. That was it! Now I just need to make my way around the office here and find everyone who prints to that network printer and update their driver from 5P to 4050. It's been working, but it bugs me that they're all using the wrong driver. It could cause some printing artifacts to appear from time to time.

Thanks to you and everyone else for the kickass advice. I still suck with Citrix, but I at least suck a little less now.