Setting up printer on SMT laptop

[firefox_2006]

Hello

 

I have a member of the SMT that has a laptop and keeps accidently printing documents to the wrong printers on our network. Is there a way of modifying her 'profile' so that she only has access to certain printers on the network.

 

I imagine this could be done through Active Directory, but im not sure how.

 

Regards

 

firefox_2006

[kearton]

PEBKAC error... Delete the other ones.

[plock]

I presume you're running printer scripts to map and default your printers? Modify this to map only the required printers.

 

We map dependent upon where the machine is situated in AD. So the machine she is using can have specific printers mapped.

[localzuk]

Also, if you simply remove permissions from the printers they shouldn't print to this should solve the problem

[plock]

Also, if you simply remove permissions from the printers they shouldn't print to this should solve the problem

 

Very true, but that doesn't keep the network very tidy! It's pointless giving the system unnecessary work.

[localzuk]

Huh? Denying access to printers isn't untidy - it is normal network administration! Deny all, allow the couple that should. How does it give the system unnecessary work? :S

[contink]

Huh? Denying access to printers isn't untidy - it is normal network administration! Deny all, allow the couple that should. How does it give the system unnecessary work? :S

True,

 

But what's the point of publishing a printer to a workstation that shouldn't/doesn't want to use it? It's just clutter in that scenario so a little tweaking of the login script that sets up printers would sort it quick enough.

[plock]

Yes, definitely deny access to all printers they don't require. However, as 'contink' quite rightly stated, why publish the printer to workstation in the first place?

[Oops_my_bad]

if your permissions are set up properly they will either be implicitly allowed or denied access. It's generally bad practice to explicitly deny stuff

[localzuk]

Well, there was no publishing of printers mentioned by the OP... Just that they were printing to the wrong printers. Remember that printers can be manually added to each machine.

 

Also, even if they are all published to the machines with no permission to print, this removes the difficulty in the future if they are given permissions to print on one they couldn't before...

[maniac]

We ocassionally have this problem with the staffroom printer. if a member of staff logs on in the staffroom my login script maps the staffroom printer, and sets it as default. Because our staff use roaming profiles, this printer is saved as their default printer when they logoff, so when they log onto their laptop, they have to manually change it back to their local printer.

 

I'm going to sort this our over the summer with a logoff script that should hopefully remove the printer, and set the default back to the origenal printer when they logoff.

 

The obvious solution to your problem is to remove permissions from printers they definitely don't need. If this isn't practical, the only way forwards is to educate the user to double check their printer settings before sending print jobs. You could also write a simple login script for the affected user that sets their default printer at every login to their local one, this will ensure they are printing by default to the right printer, but obviously means they could still accidently select an incorrect printer.

 

Another possible solution suits the scinario where they definitely don't need to print to that printer from that particular workstation, but do from other workstations, that's to add the workstation name to the ACL for the printer, and set it to deny, this should override the user permissions. I'm not 100% sure if this will work, it just popped into my mind as something I would try.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike.