Printer deployment

[eddyc]

Hi all,

Just wondering how you go about printer deployment within your schools.
Being in a school there are lots of considerations...

For example, you need to look at the Organizational Unit of the computer, the user itself, the groups that the user belongs to, etc, etc.

So all teachers are a member of the staff group – which gives them the option of the staff room as a printer (this is non-default)
Each member of staff belongs to a faculty – if they are in the humanities group, they should also be deployed the humanities printer.
Then just to top it off, if they are logging into the network from a computer in the ICT room M4, they should get the M4 MONO option as default and the M4 COLOUR option should also be available.

We were originally running a Viglen Classlink 7 based network on Server 2003 which allowed us to use the their “printersetup.exe” tool to do the above.
This did work to an extent when it wanted to....
For a few different reasons we have scrapped classlink all together and have since developed our own in house network from scratch but are having issues with deploying printers.

We have tried to do it via group policy using pushprinterconnections.exe but this does not seem to be the best way of doing it, and was very hit and miss, despite setting the default printers in gp preferences.

How do you do it where you are based?

Any comments / suggestions are more than welcome!

Thanks, Ed.

[chilbs]

Have you looked at the printer deployment script in the wiki?

[eddyc]

chilbs, I have taken a look at the wiki, the script is fine by room, but will not allow by faculty / other group ownerships which is a shame really. If only there was a way of doing this too...

[chilbs]

I have a scripts at work that deploy printers via the OU of user the computer but they are both separate. I'm sure that they could be combined or that one of the more script savvy people on tomorrow will be able to help you.

[Kipling]

I use the Microsoft tool IfMember.exe within my logon scripts to check group membership and act accordingly.
It’s very useful when installing printers or displaying the correct AUP etc.

[eddyc]

I have to say that the IfMember.exe seems to be a very useful tool. I will have a play and see what I can come up with.

[eddyc]

We ended up using kix to deploy the printers just incase anyone else ever has the same sort of issue. It's an extermely effective tool once you get to grips with it :P