Terminal Services and Printing

[Don79]

Hi Guys,

I have an important question. I am connecting remotely via terminal services from my laptop. The terminal server is a Windows 2000 Server box. The question is:

How do I print a document from an accounting application residing on the terminal server to my local printer connected to my laptop at home?

Is this possible? Please advise as to the steps. It would be appreciated. Would the printer driver need to be installed on the terminal server? Would I select the port as LPT or? I am new to this.

Thank You.

 

[throwdini]

What OS is your laptop running? The new windows OS should automatically enable local printing while using terminal services. Not that it helps any, but Server 2003 does enable client printers and drives. I was told that server 2000 does as well.

 

[FarscapeFan]

Using a 2K TS server, it is my understanding that: 1) the printer driver must be installed on the Terminal Server (to LPT1); 2) the driver must be named exactly the same on both TS and remote computer; 3) the printer must be connected to LPT1 on the remote computer; and 4) the printer must be powered on before you connect to TS. Regardless of Microsoft's terminology, for me "printer" means the actual hardware.

If all the above steps are done, then TS will automatically detect the printer. Once you see it, mark it as your default printer while in your TS session and you should not have any more problems with printing from TS.

 

[Don79]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the responses. This is really strange though. So far, I can only get one remote windows 2000 workstation to connect to terminal server and successfully print a file residing on the terminal server. When I log on remotely, I see the following appear in the printers folder on the terminal server:

HP DeskJet 672C/Rob-Server/Session 1

Rob-Server is the name of my machine. I can print.

However, I tried the same process as FarscapeFan stated above on 2 other workstations, 1 xp and 1 win2k, and it is not working. For example:

I had a windows 2000 laptop with a wireless PCI card. A Deskjet cp1160 attached to it through a parallel cable. Shared this printer on the laptop and made it default.

Went on the t-server under the same profile. Installed the cp1160 driver and set it to LPT1, etc.

Then i logged onto terminal server from this 2000 laptop. I don't see any message like the one above with "session1", etc. Meanwhile, I have the same protocols installed as that of the remote desktop that worked. The same goes for XP. I cannot print. When I try to print something remotely, it goes into the printer's queue, which can also be seen on the TS.

Therefore, I fail to understand why only 1 remote workstation is working and nothing else if I am applying the same steps. any ideas? am i missing something in the config? by the way, all 3 remote test machines logged on with the same account info.

Please advise. sorry if i confused you..

 

[FarscapeFan]

It sounds like your printer drivers are not using the same name on both sides. It does not matter what you call the printer for identification purposes, the same exactly named drivers must be installed on both sides.

I had a user who bought a new PC and had been printing without issue on her old PC. Same scenario as you are describing happened on her new PC. Turned out when she installed the printer driver she inadvertently gave it a slightly different name. Makes all the difference.

 

[jollyrogers]

We have had a similar problem before. While all of the above are true as far printer drivers etc, sometimes there can be a problem with print redirect see article

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302361&Product=termsvr

this may be the problem.

 

[jollyrogers]

When a remote computer uses a printer, the printer must be directly connected to the pc via LPT1 or USB. Terminal Server does not allow Print Redirection on printers that are shared within a remote LAN. Each of your remote computers must have its own printer.