Wrong default printer

[Danny]

Hi. I've published an anonymous application.
My clients have several printers installaed (10 - 20).
The default printer is a Brother. If I print with Word or Excel in local, all is allright.
Citrix Server creates all the printers. But the default, when the client prints in my application, is not the Brother, but a Lexmark %-(.

Anyone know why??
Thanks for all your helps.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

The ICA session *should* pick up whatever is selected as the default printer at the client, if this is set.

There is a utility in the NT 4 Resource Kit called defptr.exe. This is a systray utility that allows a user to change their default printer without having to go to the printers folder. This way, the users could select the printer they need to use.

Are you using roaming or mandatory profiles?

Did you install the Brother printer driver on the Terminal Server in change user/install mode - and is the mapping correct in wtsuprn.inf?

Hope this helps

 

[Danny]

The Brother printer driver was already installed (with Windows 2000) and there is even in "ntprint.inf" file.
It is already the default printer on the client(but thanks for the tips about "defptr.exe", that may be useful).
Infact Citrix Server remaps driver correctly (I can see it on the client, remapped), but not as the default printer.

I have not understood what means "roaming or mandatory profiles".... I don't use any profile!. Anonymous users with anonymous publications and explicit users with explicit publications seem to go well, except for this case of wrong default printer....
Do you think that my problems is related with the missing of profiles? If yes, where I can read something about this argument?
Thanks of all (your help is always great!).

 

[CitrixEngineer]

In the long run, roaming profiles make Citrix Servers, and especially users, more manageable.

In the short term, however, it's a bit of a learning experience. There is a comprehensive whitepaper on policies and profiles on Microsoft's site which runs to 168 or so pages - and is a guaranteed cure for insomnia.

My advice, as always, is to trial a couple of users in a test environment, build it up to a pilot of 10 or so users, then roll out to the remainder.

In brief, all you need do is set a Terminal Server profile path to a pre-created share (preferably on a file server) via User Manager for domains on a Terminal Server. The necessary field will not appear if you do this from your PDC (assuming that your PDC is not a Terminal Server).

Terminal Server will then create the profile for you in the location specified, provided you have set the necessary permissions.

You can then modify profiles using policies, and control exactly what the user will get on their desktop, where ever they log on to their Citrix Sessions.

I realise this is not a complete discussion, but I hope this helps you to improve the service you give your users!

 

[Danny]

Ok, CitrixEngineer, but ... what about my problem (wrong default printer) ?
My "anonymous user" are now 15 and they are going to be 50 (50 licenses) when many users will connect to my publication (autocreation of user anonymous). I can't set for them a terminal server profile, because not all exist now.
And then, even they've exist.... what I should set for that?
At this moment they use the default profile, in "C:\documents and settings\default user" (they read ".ini" files in its "windows" subdirectory).... What I've got modify in that ....? I've got to rename NTUSER.DAT in NTUSER.MAN, maybe?
I have add that when I verified this problem, no other user was connected .. the only one was the anonymous of that client ....:-(
Thank and bye.

 

[Pritch5000]

Historically many of our small sites used only one login name for all users. When we started our thin-client solution and joined many small sites together, they wanted to keep this 'anonymous' login.

What we found was that if only one user logs in all is well. When the second user logs in they both have the same default printer (even if users are in different cities, both users jobs appear at the same printer!). If you had a shed load of users logging in with the same name, all the default printers would be wrong.

I think something similar is happening. Stop all this anonymous logins, Insist on explicit and give them all individual usernames.

It may look like more administration, but not in the long run. And as CE says, while you're at it, give them all manditory roaming profiles.
pritch.