Is it me or are printers a pain in Citrix? 2

[ivorproblem]

Since we set up our citrix server the one thing that has been a bind is printers!!!! Incorrect Drivers you name it, no auto creation etc

Latest problem seems to be that the print spooler insists on shutting itself down about twice a day.

Any advice would be appreciated

Ivor

 

[ChipsAhoy]

I had the same problems. Our software vendor stated tha the drives for most HP printers are not compatible with their (and others) software. They recommended that we use HP 5M print drivers for all printers. We did that and created all printers as LPR printers on the citrix box. Since that time, we have not had the spooler stop once.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Actually, HP are (generally) the "best-behaved" printer drivers under Terminal Services. Note that I do not say "well-behaved"...

HP now have a list on their site of printers that are definitely T/S aware - but that's for Windows 2000 server. If you're running NT4 TSE, then most printers need to be re-mapped.

Creating printers as LPR printers is, IMO, the best solution, if your version of MetaFrame is pre FR2. With FR2, the auto-creation got a whole lot better, IME.

Hope this helps CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[holyfrik]

Well, I am experiencing a similar problem, but with a twist.
In our environment, all Win2K boxes autocreate the printer drivers, and everything is OK. The Win98 boxes have been a little more tempremental. We have been able to get them to print locally, but Win98 boxes connected to a print server.....that is another issue.

If I understand this correctly, the Citrix server sends the print job back to the computer, rather than to the print server. I have tried installing LPR on all of the Win98 boxes connected to a seperate print server, but can't seem to get it to work properly.

Any help would be great.

 

[cajos]

Hi,
I like to correct some statements made in this mail thread.
Printers can be a pain in the .. if you don't follow the rules:
*Make sure that printers updating the Citrix server update with compatable drivers so no 98 ---> 2000 or even NT ---> 2000. (This causes the printer spooler to crash)
*All manufacture printerdrivers are crab including HP, use Microsoft default drivers.
* Restrict the number of different type of printers.

Just for background I work for EPSON and we in Europe are using Citrix (arround 550 pinters, every type and model must be supported in citrix). And our technical driver departments had a great many compaints from us regarding printer drivers. They have written new drivers for every printer younger then 2 years, to fit Citrix.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Is there supporting documentation for this (ie a link to somewhere on Epsom's site that supports what you are saying)? It'd be great to see another printer company certify that its drivers will definitely work with Terminal Services - I'd like to know which printers specifically.


Thanks

CE CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[HomerJ]

I just can say that we have all time problems with printers under ts. we just use hp printers and on the hp-site are some of the printers listed as terminalserver able. but we just have a hp colorlaserjet 2500 driver which crashes our whole environment because this driver changes some dll's of our hp 4000 driver.

my advice to all is: just take the drivers which are included with windows 2000 and avoid drivers directly from hp.

 

[payneb]

Homer is absolutly right. we have had months of errors with access reports printing and it was something with the drivers. Going back to the HP drivers that were on the W2k disk solved it all.

Also, we made all printers "Local" printers. That is, every printer resides on the server and points to the share on the print server. For instance, each citrix server has a "HP5Si" with a Port address of \\Ourprintserver\hp5si. Printing has never gone so smooth. This was done over 2 years ago in a Metaframe 1.0 farm and is still being used in our XPe farm today. The print spooler has NEVER failed.