Fed up of 'Deploying printer settings'

[jamwatn]

I'm a fairly newbie Technician so sorry if I don't make sense.

We have a problem in our school with some pc start-ups. (I might have made a similar thread and I know there is lots of this about).

 

When pc's in suites are soft shutdown properly, the problem doesn't exist.

 

When a pc is hard shutdown (eg. Off at the plug), on boot the pc will display 'deploying printer settings' for nearly ten minutes before a user logs on. This appears in system logs too. It's destroyed a few lessons and happens in most rooms with different machines. Interestingly a room full of pc's with a printer won't do it, but another room with an identical printer will!

I've tried multiple hot fixes, updated switches, loading local print drivers but to no avail.

Any things I can try? Thanks!

[rich_tech]

How do you deploy printer settings on your network? Is it an xps network or windows 7 based? Are printers through a central server or local?

[jamwatn]

It's a server 2008 r2 based vanilla win 7 network. The printers are deployed via group policy. Not sure of the difference between centrally and locally? I'm new to this remember.

[ChrisH]

Are you using HP universal drivers ?

[jamwatn]

No the printers are Ricoh.

[free780]

Presumably gpp. Are permissions setup correctly for users? I'm assuming printers are depoyed per machine. Their are also hotfixes for gpp which may need to be depoyed. You need to isolate a pc with the iasue. Try manually adding the printer and see what happens.

[jamwatn]

They should be. The thing is it happens before a user even gets near a machine so the printers are deployed on machine level. I've even tried loading a driver locally.

There is clearly something 'cleaned up' or deleted on a shutdown that doesn't happen when a pc is instantly turned off.

It just doesn't make sense!

[free780]

May be a shutdown script. Check your group policy.

[rich_tech]

if your using GPP to deploy printers, it could be stuck because this bit is worth checking -

 

Creating the Printer Preference

 

In the GPMC, create a new GPO named Printers: DOMAIN-NAME or Printers: SITE NAME. I am going to make the assumption that you already have a print server and you already have printers on that server. I will also assume that you the relevant drivers installed. If you have a X64 Print Server and you have X86 clients, the Print Server will need the X86 drivers.

 

Edit the GPO and navigate to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Printers. Disable “Point and Print Restrictions”. This will allow your clients to install drivers from your Print Server.

 

Thats off this website - Deploying Printers with Group Policy Preferences (Complete Guide) - DeployHappiness

 

Google the point and print restrictions bit for more information.

 

It could be sticking because of trouble installing the drivers, I had to turn look at those restrictions on our school network because of GPP issues as well when we switched to 7, nowadays it takes seconds to get past this bit (we only map 1/2 printers max here depending on location for the majority of staff/pupils)

Edited April 6, 2014 by rich_tech

[jamwatn]

Ok. Well I think when I'm back from Easter Hols. I'll check the drivers. As I said, in one room with an identical printer there are no problems whatsoever, but in other rooms with the same printer I will see the problem. It's the same on RM and Dell boxes too.

[jamwatn]

The issue has been solved!

The problem was a bloated WMI repository on each box (about 900mb). (Still not sure what a WMI Repository is!) We've created a script that can 'clean' the repository. This clones the repository then creates a fresh small one. Our script then deletes the cloned repository.

This has sped up logon times after a hard/bad shutdown to normal.

We've also combined this with Delprof2 and a batch script which deletes old profiles on a machine remotely and moves onto the next one leaving a log on the local machine.

 

More info:

 

Unexpectedly slow logon caused by large WMI repository in Windows or Windows Server

[Meldrew]

When a pc is hard shutdown (eg. Off at the plug), on boot the pc will display 'deploying printer settings' for nearly ten minutes before a user logs on.

 

Count yourself lucky. We have a real problem with students forcibly powering off machines. Ours can take 45 minutes to logon. Despite telling teachers till I'm blue in the face to tell students not to do this, it continues. In some rooms after numerous complains about the rubbish IT system, we disabled the power switches and use WOL to switch on. Now they just switch off at the wall instead..

 

Meldrew

[robjduk]

Printers and group policy is a total pain in the ar*e. As a work around for the rooms where printers are abit "iffy" deploying I have created shortcuts in a shared area for the students to double click which adds the printer in seconds. I am seriously considering making this the official way to install printers across my site.

 

Like most others I have signed into a laptop as a student 10 times in a row perfectly and then the 11th will take 10 minutes! Drives me nuts.

[jb2201]

I must admit its the only thing I still deploy via VBS now, I am a big lover of GPP's but it just seems to be a bit naff at dealing with printers.

[Duke5A]

I still deploy with VB rather than GPP. I tried GPP and found it to be so stinking inconsistent it drove me nuts. VB works every time and allows for such granular control over who gets what I don't see any reason to move away from it and clutter up my Active Directory.

[robjduk]

after fighting these thoughts I have come to the conclusion I am just making my day harder than it should be by insisting on group policy. Could anyone direct me to a good resource for scripting printers please?

 

Ta

[glen_j]

this is a vb script to add printers just copy to notepad and save as .vbs you'll need to edit the printserver\printer lines

 

 

Dim objNetwork

on error resume next

 

Dim PrinterDriver, PrinterPath,PrinterDriver1, PrinterPath1,PrinterDriver2, PrinterPath2

 

Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")

 

PrinterPath = "\\PRINT SERVER NAME\PRINTER"

PrinterDriver = "PRINTER MAKE AND MODEL"

PrinterPath1 = "\\PRINT SERVER NAME\PRINTER"

PrinterDriver1 = "PRINTER MAKE AND MODEL"

PrinterPath2 = "\\PRINT SERVER NAME\PRINTER"

PrinterDriver2 = "PRINTER MAKE AND MODEL"

 

objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection PrinterPath, PrinterDriver

objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection PrinterPath1, PrinterDriver1

objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection PrinterPath2, PrinterDriver2

objNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter PrinterPath

[Duke5A]

If you're looking for a bit more logic in the script: VB Script for network printer deployment - Blogs - EduGeek.net

[the_quick]

same here , after using GPP and failing, we switched to script and all the problems disappeared.

[AJWhite1970]

This is my ugly but works printer distribution script

 

_InstallPRNVBS.bat

cscript \\quartz\profiles\printers\_delete_prn.vbs

cscript \\quartz\profiles\printers\vbs\%computername%.vbs

Rem Fix50676 creates LOW directory in Appdata\temp

msiexec /i \\nebula\apps\nwapps\flash\Fixit50676.msi /q

 

_delete_prn.vbs

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

Set colInstalledPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery _

("Select * From Win32_Printer Where Network = True")

For Each objPrinter in colInstalledPrinters

objPrinter.Delete_

Next

 

PC1234.vbs

On Error resume Next

set objNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")

set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

'Add Network printers

objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\quartz\HP LaserJet P2055dn IT01 P1"

objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\quartz\HP Colour LaserJet CP2025 IT01"

objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\quartz\Konica Minolta 421 STAFFROOM"

'Set Default Printer

objNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\quartz\HP LaserJet P2055dn IT01 P1"

 

The link to the fixit file I use is as follows:

Unable to print or view the print preview of a webpage in Internet Explorer

 

Hope that helps someone

Andrew

[IGB]

We deploy our printers via AD Groups and a KIX script on every login.

Computer needs a connection to another printer, just add it to the Printer Group and it's there for the next login.

 

Also handy if you have a printer that is Out Of Order, to just add the computers that were normally connected to it to another group.

Computer moves to another office, add it to another Printer group.

 

The only time I need to look at the script is when we add more printers, but as it's ony 5 lines of code it only take a few seconds to update once the printer has been installed on the server.

As you can see from the code, we also utilise a virtual print queue that can release the prints to any device on the network so if a computer hasn't yet been added to a printer group, the device can still print.

 

IF computerINGROUP("Domain Computers")=1

Addprinterconnection ("\\PrintServer\FollowMe")

? "Added printer connection to Followme virtual queue"

SETDEFAULTPRINTER ("\\PrintServer\FollowMe")

ENDIF

 

IF computerINGROUP("Exams Printer Group")=1

Addprinterconnection ("\\PrintServer\exams")

? "Added printer connection to Exams MFD"

SETDEFAULTPRINTER ("\\PrintServer\exams")

ENDIF