So confused about printer deployment via GPO

[cajuntank]

Ok, I created a group policy for a lab where the policy maps a drive, does folder redirection for documents, and is supposed to create printers on my stations. The drive mapping works fine, the folder redirection works fine. I just cannot get the printers created. I can manually go to the workstation and install the network printers. So after a little looking through some documentation, I'm confused on how Microsoft suggests this to be done. Do I still go through the deploy printers scenario via Printer Management like with 2003 R2? If so, what was the reason for the preferences option in 2008? I'm so confused.

 

[cajuntank]

Ok.. A little less confused. I see that they are in fact, two different technologies; however, my main problem is still that part of the policy for some reason is not being implemented. I saw on another post somewhere that the driver might need to be installed first before the printers would install from the policy. That would stink if the policy doesn't do that automatically.

 

[58sniper]

If you do it the R2 way, you add the printer in printer management, assign it to a user or computer based GPO, and then also have the .exe file run in the machine startup (for machine based printers) or logon (user based printers) script.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[cajuntank]

Trying to do it the 2008 way and whereas my other stuff works, the printers just don't get created on the stations.

 

[markdmac]

Did you install both x64 AND x86 drivers on the server?

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

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[cajuntank]

Yes. The printers are HP printers so I am using the pcl5e univeral print driver. I downloaded and installed both 64bit and 32bit drivers and made sure they are both X'd on my shares. Today, I installed one printer manually (which installing manually always worked, so no driver or permission issue) thinking about what I read about the driver being on the computer already then it working; however, even with this done and rebooting, still did nothing. I ran a resultant policy for one of the machines and everything comes up saying success, including the printers.

 

[markdmac]

So did you choose to Add or Replace the printers in GPP? What other settings did you select in the preferences?

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[cajuntank]

In the Preferences, under Control Panel Settings, Printers, then chose Action:Create, under Share Path: hit the property button to browse for my shared printer. Set one of my printers (a HP Laserjet 8000n) and checked set this printer as the default and also checked ...only if a local printer is not present. Under the Common tab, checked Item-level tarketing and under Tarketing have two statements defined. If user is a member of the security group domain\student group OR the user is a member of the security group domain\teacher group.

I have another printer share (HP Laserjet P2050) defined exactly the same way (except for the checked as default settings) for those groups, so I should get two created printers on my computers in this scenario based on a person ou tof one of those two groups logging in.