Printers, profiles and group policies 1

[strangetimes]

How do I set different printers for different rooms bearing in mind I use a mandatory profile for the users in question (1300 of!). For example in one building I have 3 laser printers in different rooms on the profile and have to trust them to choose the correct one. I have tried putting all computers in a room into an OU and putting a logon batch file to run a "net use lpt1: \\roomA\hplJ" under the group policy for each said OU with no success. Any help would be much appreciated.

Strangetimes
CCNA MCP CCAI NET+

 

[bcastner]

I like member Dillinger99's approach discussed in this thread: thread779-581142

 

[strangetimes]

Thanks for the swift reply, my problem though is that my users move from room to room so I need to set the printer mapping at workstation not user level. We cobbled it under NT but i'm at a blank with 2K.

Strangetimes
CCNA MCP CCAI NET+

 

[bcastner]

You have some global environmental variables you can use. For example COMPUTERNAME is available and set automaticly to the unique name given the computer during installation. You can use fancing Case structures to parse the correct printers, or just include in everyone's logon script a statement such as %COMPUTERNAME%.BAT

example My_Computer_001.bat
net use lpt1: /d
net use lpt2: /d
net use lpt1: //server1/laser2
net use lpt2: //server2/laser3

' make the first printer the default for Windows
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n \\server1\laser2 /y

' end of batch file for computername = My_Computer_001.bat

You would create a .bat or .cmd file for each computername. These can be stored on the file server in the logon directory.

 

[strangetimes]

Thanks for thet bcastner.

I haven't had time to look at it yet, I've been trying to ressurect Exchange for the last day, still with no luck, got some more avenues to explore though. (Staff are getting *issed at having no email!)

BTW My workstations are all named by room eg. E9_01, J14_37 etc. can I do a script to pluck the first three characters from a computername? I would only have to do one per room then.. (300 stations UC!)

Strangetimes
CCNA MCP CCAI NET+

 

[strangetimes]

Thanks for that bcastner.

I haven't had time to look at it yet, I've been trying to ressurect Exchange for the last day, still with no luck, got some more avenues to explore though. (Staff are getting *issed at having no email!)

BTW My workstations are all named by room eg. E9_01, J14_37 etc. can I do a script to pluck the first three characters from a computername? I would only have to do one per room then.. (300 stations UC!)

Strangetimes
CCNA MCP CCAI NET+