Printers - help

HI

we are running mainly thin clients and we use dektop authority to map printers to terminals and staff etc, but we have several different departments each with there own budget and printer.

but the problem is as there ink runs out they are sending work to other departments printers, which is cusing abit of confilct as its the saem department all the time that dont want to buy ink

how can i make sure that student/staff only get the printer in the room they are in. they are mapped to be removed on log off so when they log on in another room they shouldnt be able to print to another department but hey are

help please

We use a logon script that sets the printers based on the computers Location. You could set the logon script to assign printers based on the username of the user.

You're looking at a mix of approaches to sort this.

1. Locking down the printers so that only those from a relevant department can actually print to them (perhaps set up security groups for departments and then give them print permissions, removing everyone else)

2. Using GPO to stop users from adding printers manually...

3. Change printer settings so they don't publish to the active directory, making them a bit harder to find

4. Using the aforementioned login script to remove all existing network printers and add only those that the users should have access to based on their location, OU or Security group membership.

5. Installing the papercut freebie software to log all printing done and then give the information to the different departments so they can bill those abusing their resources from other departments... That, if nothing else would have a very salutory effect on the worst offenders.


Hope that helps..