Deploying Printers via GP

[5tu]

Hi - no didn't get anywhere with it - still the same old issue that sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't! I'd love to find the cause!!

 

How many DCs have got and what OS are they running? Check replication is working ok. If OS is 2012 or higher make sure one or more of your DCs hasn't stopped replicating due to this issue.

[Jollity]

Thanks, Ephelyon, that is really helpful. I can see that running as the script from the start menu startup folder might be helpful. We have used that method for setting the default printer before, but not for actually installing the printers.

 

Sorry all for the stealth thread necromancy. We have a similar problem to some of the later posters: we have been using group policy printer deployment (the print management console type, not the GPP type). It has never worked that well, but just recently we have been getting many more cases of printers not appearing. Maybe due to finally decommissioning our last Server 2003 domain server over the Summer. The issues mainly seem to correspond to a PrintService log error:

Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Admin
Event ID:      513
Task Category: Routing print spooler command(s)
Group Policy was unable to add per computer connection \\printServer\printer. Error code 0xbc4. This can occur if the name of the printer connection is incorrect, or if the print spooler cannot contact the print server.

I have had disappointing results with GPP printers in the past, particularly around slowing login time. I am going to give a login script a try, which might at least let me run more diagnostics on failure.

 

 

Couple of questions for Ephelyon:

• Did you use a cmd script as opposed to vbscript or powershell just because that was the easiest technology to hand, or deliberately for reliability or other reasons?
  
• Am I right you have a delete action at the top of that list of GPP ini file rules to clear out the file?
  

[Ephelyon]

* Mainly just because it's the one I'm familiar with. While VBScript and PowerShell are arguably more powerful, they often need so many more lines (particularly with VBS) to get things done, and PowerShell's syntax can be complicated. Batch script hasn't changed all that much overall since the DOS days, and as that's what I've grown up with I've just never really moved on from it. I don't touch VBS at all these days but will use PowerShell when I need its flexibility.

 

* Yes, sorry, should've mentioned there's a Delete All entry for the Printers.ini file at the very top.

[Jollity]

Agreed on VBScript's verbosity.

 

I think I will start a trial with a powershell version of your script, and see if I get issues. I would like the script to run some tests if we still get errors and I find batch scripts a pain to deal with (similarly what you are familiar with). However I have seen a few issues with powershell login scripts - they seemed to be sticking up errors when the CD drive was ejected at one point.