Group Policy printer problem for Windows 8.1

[jason0923]

We have printers deployed to our buildings via Group Policy. We’re having intermittent problems with the printers getting mapped for the users. We have a mixed Windows 7 and 8.1 environment. From what I can tell the Windows 7 almost always work. However for the Windows 8.1 ones its intermittent. The error in the Application log for the machines that do not get the printers is this:

The user ‘Hard-IMC-1nb-test’ preference item in the ‘Student Mandatory {0FA26CC5-C001-4A02-AACE-930581B7A1CF}’ Group Policy Object did not apply because it failed with error code ’0×80070057 The parameter is incorrect.’ This error was suppressed.

Hard-IMC etc is the printer share name. Student Mandatory is the name of the policy.

The strange thing is some students login and get all printers, some it gets this. I tried adding another printer share to the same printers with say a PCL5 driver vs a PCL 6. And it’ll work fine for a few days then that one falls into the mix of not getting mapped. This is happening in all of our buildings each has its own local 2008 R2 print server. If I create a test account and login to the same PC as a student that doesn’t get the printers it works fine for about 9-10 logins and then it starts happening to the test account. Its like the problem takes a few logins to occur. I’ve looked at some of our printers and they use the same manufacturer driver for both Win 7 and 8.1 so its not a driver issue especially since a lot of the times they do map.

The only thing I’ve been able to find out is that on Win7 its not happening. Nothing else makes sense. There is no pattern to time of day or account. The machines all have the same image and updates etc. Can anyone give me a direction to look at. We have too many PC’s to do printers individually.

In some cases when a user logs in and doesn’t get the printers they can log off and back on and they work that time but not always.

Its hard to work on this problem because for the most part when I login to any machine with out test account it works.

I have a test PC setup and today if I reboot it and login with a test account, none of the printers connect. If I log out and back in they do. I'm not sure how this figures in but its a pattern. I'd appreciate any help I can get. Thanks

[pow]

I'm glad you've bought this up actually, I have a similar problem, sometimes the printer will map on logon, sometimes it won't. Sometimes when you add the printer in the manual method it'll add, sometimes you it wont saying 'Windows cannot connect to the printer'. Then you try again and it works.

 

Only experienced this problem on 8.1, print server is a 2008 R2 VM (annoyingly, Equitrac software won't work on anything else!). All x64 environment

 

When they are mapped they work perfectly.

[clairehr]

Hi Both,

 

I found something similar and today I found the settings for it. On the new ADMX templates there's new settings in Computer Configuration/System/Group Policy for the printers deployed by preferences in "Configure Printers preference extension policy processing". I think what's happening is that your background processing is set to too long an interval, which is why its giving you seemingly random results. Change the background priority

[pow]

Claire thank you very much for pointing me in that direction, I've just bumped it up to normal priority so lets see if that makes a difference!

[mattpant]

Has anybody managed to fix this?

 

I'm having very similar issues with Windows 8.1 clients mapping printers using a VBS logon script and a Windows Server 2012R2 Print Server.

 

I sometimes get No Printers Installed - Log out, then straight back in and they appear correctly with no problems!

 

Sometimes if there's two or more printer to be mapped, I only get 1 printer installed

 

The same script on Windows XP machines works just fine with no issues.

 

There's no real pattern to try and pin point the issue - I've amended the GPO for the Point and Print settings so it doesn't pop up about Trust Printers etc I'm also aware of the delay built into Windows 8.1 with Startup Scripts and have modified the GPO setting for that so there is no delay in running the script

 

HELP!!!

 

I have tried installing the printers with GPP - which does map the printer but causes other issues by setting up a connection directly to the printer and bypassing the print server and therefore bypassing PaperCut - users not getting charged for copies - and not being able to set the default printer -

 

Thanks

 

Matt

Edited January 8, 2015 by mattpant

[Davit2005]

Has anybody managed to fix this?

 

HELP!!!

 

I have tried installing the printers with GPP - which does map the printer but causes other issues by setting up a connection directly to the printer and bypassing the print server and therefore bypassing PaperCut - users not getting charged for copies - and not being able to set the default printer -

 

Thanks

 

Matt

 

I know with pCounter we had to create the printers as shared printers which is a user policy otherwise as you say it bypasses the accounting. Set my printers on the computers OU's and then just enabled Policy LoopBack processing set to merge this enables users to get specific default printers for the location they are in. It works flaw lessley once set up but we haven't rolled this out to any Windows 8.1 devices yet.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Davit2005