Deploy printer using group policy - won't work

[KevWCFE]

Hi everyone,
Meant to post last week when I sorted the problem but was busy implementing it through all the labs and testing it.

To Domino and Localzuk, thanks for all your suggestions and help. You got me going in the right direction. To all who posted after my last post thanks for taking the time to help out and I'm sorry I didn't get back sooner to say its sorted.

As it turned out I found an older version of pmcmgmt.exe on the Microsoft site which was about 745KB instead of the 1MB version I was talking about in my post. When I ran this on my XP laptop it installed itself and then finished. I was a little perplexed but I did a search of my laptop for pushpushprinterconnections.exe after the install and I found it in C:\WINDOWS\pmcsnap and copied it to the server. I then setup the the pushprinterconnections.exe as per localzuk's post (the link gives instructions):

Do you have the 'pushprinterconnections.exe' file set up? Deploy printers by using Group Policy

Once this was done I rebooted my test PC and it worked!! Thank God for that. I deployed the test printer to one of the computer labs not in use that afternoon and rebooted a few of them and sure enough they had the new printer installed when I logged in. There was a mock exam the following morning so I left it set up and the report back was everything worked.

So thanks again to Domino and to localzuk.

To Bruce123 who said

I know this has been expressed already, but I would personally forget about using pushprinterconnections.exe and use the Group Policy Preferences section in 2008/R2 to deploy your printers, instead.

I think this would be correct except the domain functional level is at server 2003. Could I upgrade that without any bad things happening? I'll have to look into that.

Thanks to Sted who offered to send me a copy, I had obtained the right one by then but the offer is appreciated.

Great forum! I will try to help other here but as I'm only starting out in the server world I don't have much experience.

I'll be back

[PeteLong]

Now you can use GPP, Here's some more information that might be helpful,

Deploying Printers with Group Policy Preferences

Pete

[Domino]

Now you can use GPP, Here's some more information that might be helpful,

Except he can't cause the domain is 2k3

I think this would be correct except the domain functional level is at server 2003. Could I upgrade that without any bad things happening? I'll have to look into that.

To upgrade the domain functional level, you'll need all DCs to be running 2008 or 2008 r2.

The only trouble you might have is with any linux boxes you have knocking around - depending on the version of samba they're running they might not be able to authenticate.

[Michael]

I was under the impression 'pushprinterconnections.exe' was still needed for XP with a 2008 R2 server, but Windows Vista and Windows 7 uses gpprnext.dll, so it literally is a case of installing a printer, sharing it and deploying it per user, per computer or both where required.

[sted]

Except he can't cause the domain is 2k3



To upgrade the domain functional level, you'll need all DCs to be running 2008 or 2008 r2.

The only trouble you might have is with any linux boxes you have knocking around - depending on the version of samba they're running they might not be able to authenticate.

you can do it without upgrading the domain im sure ive got gpp printers working somewhere that hasnt got an 08 server just did it via a win7 pc

[williamcp]

I know this has been expressed already, but I would personally forget about using pushprinterconnections.exe and use the Group Policy Preferences section in 2008/R2 to deploy your printers, instead.

This is probably best done on using User preferences but targetted to computers (and linked to a OU contain computers). You do need Client Side Extensions on your XP machines for this to work (approval in WSUS).

It is (by a long way IMHO) Microsoft's most elegant method yet for printer deployment and also gives you a lot of control/flexibilty of what printers are mapped/unmapped and setting defaults etc.

Thanks,

Bruce.

do you have a microsoft tech bulletin on how to do this without pushprinterconnections.exe?

[flashsnaps]

Also, are you deploying as a machine policy to a machine OU? or a user policy to a user OU?

Sorry to bring this up, I am struggling to get a printer working in the same fashion.

I am deploying a printer to a workstation ou. Anything I am missing?

E.g.

IT Suite has 10 workstations, I only want this printer rolled out to those 10 workstations.

[Domino]

For GPP to work attaching the printers, the printer needs to be listed in the directory - something to check.