How do you setup your printers?

[mmoseley]

Hiya Guys!

How do you currently setup your printers on your network?, We currently have to logon as an admin and setup the printer on the machine its attached to then share it,

While on other comptuers that want to print to that machine we have to add a LOCAL printer and create a new port to that printer via the machine, so for example \\itdept1\HPLaser

Im just curious on how other people do this cause i find it a very long winded process!!

Cheers

Martin

[Oops_my_bad]

All of our printers bar 1 or 2 are network printers. We set them up once on a dedicated print server by doing as you suggest creating a local TCP/IP port on the print server that points to the printer. We then deploy the printers via group policy on a location basis (ie the Science OU gets mapped the science printer and so forth).

If you are using 2003 R2 it makes things a helluva lot easier

Nice thing is you don't have to visit each PC manually.

It works a bit different for staff laptops as they have to set the printer up themselve - but all they do is browse the directory for one and off they go.

Some people prefer to use scripts but for us the group policy thing works best.

[webman]

All printers networked. Give them a static IP address, create new TCP/IP port on one of our servers to the printer, apply security then allocate to machines.

[mattx]

How do you currently setup your printers on your network?, We currently have to logon as an admin and setup the printer on the machine its attached to then share it,

Use IP printers or get some netgear mini print servers:

http://www.netgear.co.uk/mini_print_server_ps101.php

[FN-GM]

We just add them when we build the image

[_Bat_]

I just added two printers recently both via the login script using con2prt which is a commnandline utility from the Zero Administration Kit for Windows NT 4.0. It works extremely well for domain PCs.

[_Bat_]

It works a bit different for staff laptops as they have to set the printer up themselve - but all they do is browse the directory for one and off they go.

I wonder if I'll be murdered if I ask our staff to do this on their own laptops. I might use wink to set up a flash guide on how to do it, then e-mail everyone the link. Do you reckon this is asking too much? It does save me having to dash around the school all day tomorrow setting it up.

[tech_guy]

It works a bit different for staff laptops as they have to set the printer up themselve - but all they do is browse the directory for one and off they go.

Gee, if we tried anything like this at my college we'd be burnt as witches....

8O

[_Bat_]

Gee, if we tried anything like this at my college we'd be burnt as witches....

8O

Guess I won't even try then. Lol. Since I've been working here, until now, I have never had new major (network wide) printers installed and in the last week I've just done two, so I'm not entirely sure how I need to set them up for laptops that never log in to the domain (apart from going around to every single one which will take quite a few hours - I guess this is the only way that remains though). Setting it up on the bulk of the network is easy... I just wish the laptops were as easy

[mattx]

I just wish the laptops were as easy

It will be if you script it...

[Psymon]

We use the following method

1 - Add a new "Enviromental Variable" called location
2 - Call the Location where the staff member is located (department? building?)
3 - Write a logon script (vbs) that is a case select, based on the enviromental variable "location"
4 - Where "Location" is X add //servername/Printer.
5 - set default printer.
5 - Installing printers = 1 variable entry.

Works good, just got to remember to add community printers like our library and workroom.

Si.

[chaz6]

We deploy all printers (with the exception of some local printers - mainly for card printing) from a central print server using the group policy print deployment tools in 2003 R2. It has so far worked well for the most part.

Like tech_guy the printer must be sought from the directory before printing. We often have problems when people hit print without selecting the printer, and the document goes to the default printer, which is "Microsoft Office Image Writer" because there is no facility to specify a default printer when using group policy printer deployment (imagine all the different combinations of printers that could potentially occur). Because the printers don't appear to the client until login, I do not know if it would be possible to apply a logon script to change the default printer. I shall need to experiment with this. I would much prefer a system where the print jobs are released to a printer rather than being printed out straight away, allowing the documents to be retrieved from anywhere in the college after being sent to print.

[Geoff]

1. Physical Printer gets setup.
2. DHCP static lease, DNS gets setup etc.
3. Printer gets loaded onto Linux print server using cups. Several queues may be setup for A3/colour/etc printing if needed.
3. Printer queue(s) gets published via samba.
4. PyQuota is told about the printer, users are given permission to print to the new printer queue(s).
5. VBS Printer scripts are altered in AD so the right machines automatically add the printer queue on login. Also set as the default printer if needed.

[dhicks]

User "prints" to PDF Creator utility.
PDF Creator passes PDF document to script, script sends PDF to server, gets back list of valid printers (with features such as duplex, colour, cost, etc) the user can print to.
Script displays printing options to user, user selects and hits "go", sever sends PDF to appropriate printer.

Works through firewalls and from off-site, can charge users for prints depending on both printer, colour and paper used. Perl/Tk GUI rather slow, am considering rewriting in Java instead.

--
David Hicks

[djm968]

VBscript from GPO