User Profiles and Network Printing 1

[jade]

Greetings,
Just finished setting up a lab with NT TSE and Citrix 1.8. The lab has a mixture of thick pcs and Netier thin clients. I have printers on the thick pcs and installed the drivers on the server. I can print from a thick pc or the server to any of the printers, but not from the thin clients. I can see the computer where the printer is, but cannot get the printer to show up as an option and when I try manually mapping to the printer, it doesn't work. Any ideas?

Second question.. I have a cd-dvd server that I'd like to map drives to for the thin clients. I understand this can be done by creating a user profile path, but am scared to create this as I fear registries. Is there perhaps a place to copy such a script where all you'd have to do is change the name of the pcs and drives to match your own?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Terri
jade@surfsouth.com

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Terri,

1. When you say printing doesn't work, do you get an error message of any kind? Is there anything in the Event log? When you say "Citrix 1.8", do you mean WinFrame or MetaFrame? Which service packs? Is the printer setup on an IP port on the computer acting as printer server? Can you map to the printer from the console on the Citrix server?

Hopefully these questions may help you solve this one.

2. What make and model is the CD/DVD server? Most servers of this type are mappable to a drive, and this can be done via the users' login scripts through a net use command.

I hope this information is useful

 

[jade]

Sorry I wasn't clearer there..lack of sleep
Metaframe 1.8, yes I can map to the printer and print from the server. The message I get when trying to map from the clients is that I don't have permission to access that. Though I've tried logging in as admin, setting permissions everywhere I can think of. I think it has something to do with the fact that the Netiers come in a workgroup and you can't put them in the domain. However, if I try to put the fat clients in the workgroup that hasn't worked either. Will keep trying til something works, but if a solution pops up I'd be grateful. The Citrix server is a standalone, but added to the PDC. Somehow though..I can't seem to get the PDC to give it all the permissions it needs.

On the cds.. its a tower running on Jukeman.. compaq server, and I'll have to check the drive manufacturer on Monday. Will look into the net use command. Thanks for the tips.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

(Monday morning!)

It loooks like you are saying that your "Netiers" are not authenticating onto the domain.(?)

If this is the case, then this explains why they do not have permission to access the printers.

Are the networked printers connected to IP ports on a printer server (if so, NT, Novell or UNIX?) or hanging off Jet Direct ports?

My favoured solution for printing is:

1. Install all drivers for the relevant printers onto IP ports on a file/printer server (NT)

2. Install the drivers (again) onto the MetaFrame server, mapping the port to the Printer server

3. Make sure ALL users are in a local group called Printer users (or similar) on the printer server.

4. Put the users into Global groups by department or similar.

5. Put those Global groups into the local printing group created in 3.

There are many ways of doing this, mine is just a preference. What is important is that the users are authenticated to the server that supports the networked printers. Just pointing the MetaFrame server at it is not enough, and will result in the problem you are seeing.

*I am assuming that your MetaFrame Admin user has Domain Admin rights, and that when you say Workgroup, you mean a local group to the MetaFrame server.

I hope I have interpreted your reply correctly (it is Monday, after all!), and that this information is of some use.

 

[jade]

NT Server and NT workstations. The Netier thin clients come in a workgroup called "SkinnyNT" and must stay that way. I called to see if they could just be added to the domain to simplify things, but apparently that requires a custom image and a fee. The Global group sure sounds like it would work..trying that tomorrow. Thank you so much.