Setting printers to mono as default

[cooper]

For cost saving I am trying to get the printers defaulting to mono but I cant get it to stick.

 

I have changed the settings on the print server for the shared printer under:

 

Printer Properties > Advanced > Printing Defaults to BLACK

 

Then if I change the driver under printing preferences on the local machine it keeps these settings even after a reboot.

 

I have tried a GPUpdate and Its not worked.

 

Thanks for any help

[DavR]

I've done this recently, and I've found that whilst changing Printing Defaults to B&W is effective to new users, it will remain as colour for those who already have the printer connection in their user profile.

 

My advice would be to track down the registry key that controls this, and put the change through to users via GP prefs registry keys. That's what I've done with our Samsungs. Or, you could create new instances of the printers with your required defaults, deploy those, and deleted the originals as a last resort.

Edited April 21, 2017 by DavR

[JackCPickup]

On the print server change the preferences to mono as well as the Printing Defaults.

[MatthewL]

Correct method is printer properties, advanced and printing defaults for any settings you want defaulting.

[cooper]

I am trying

 

Printer properties, advanced and printing defaults black

 

But if a user changes this to colour it stays colour if they log out then back in.

 

I though this would reset it back to black

[DavR]

In most cases, you can only set the Printing Defaults, users can always go and change it to colour in Preferences and it will stick. Setting Printing Defaults doesn't enforce the setting, only dictates what setting it is first time you use the printer.

 

If you want to set it to black and white, and enforce only black and white, you'd normally need a mono only driver, or a setting on the device itself.

 

Or, as I said above, look at finding the per user registry setting and turn it off this way. Still can't be enforced, but it will keep reverting to black and white at policy refresh.

[BKGarry]

We went a bit more extreme, we got Ricoh (our printer manufacturer) to setup a Mono Only printer on our server and shared that as default, so there is a mono and colour queue for everyone, it is actually a lot easier for most to see this.

[mukz]

What print solution do you use? iirc papercut does this. But you need a client on the machines.

[MattGibson]

We also force the mono queue within Papercut "Force Greyscale" from memory....?

 

As an extra we have a delete all network printers as priority 1 before it re-deploy the printers.

[karldenton]

Does it not work if you use GP to delete all printers on logon then add the printers again?

[cooper]

Thanks for your replys,

 

I think the the 2 printers approach may be the best fix with one Mono as the default and Colour as an option.