Disappearing Printers

[jonbd]

Since we stopped deleting user profiles after x days on our desktops, we haven't had any issues with printers. It's been about 6 months or so now. Still on 1709 at the moment though.

[Garacesh]

Since we stopped deleting user profiles after x days on our desktops, we haven't had any issues with printers. It's been about 6 months or so now. Still on 1709 at the moment though.

 

I've deleted that one too, but I have left Delete cached copies of roaming profiles enabled.

[Sheridan]

I don't know if the issue has gone away here or if staff have just stopped bothering to report it.. I suspect it may be the latter.

 

Very much that situation here, we only tend to hear about it if we happen to go and ask, or its really bad (like they need to print assignments for a deadline etc)

[grahamd22]

We have now found our MFP's have no problems it is now just the Ricoh desktops that have an issue. The work around which works is to install the printer locally and then it is held for all users. The issue I'm having is getting it to do the same routine but via a batch command as vbs is not working (could well be blocked) I've tried rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /if /b "NORTH-US-SRTEST-TEST24-BOGUS" /f %windir%\inf\ntprint.inf /r "IP_157.57.50.98" /m "HP Laserjet 4000 Series PCL" /Z (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/189105/how-to-add-printers-with-no-user-interaction-in-windows) but it says printer error(0x00000704 the specified port is unknown). Any other ideas for a logon script to install a network printer locally on Windows 10 ? Edited June 29, 2018 by grahamd22

[FN-GM]

Guess what has come back....

[mrbios]

Guess what has come back....

 

Arnie?

[Driftingashore]

Can't really add anything except for saying that we have the same issue (2012r2 DCs / print servers, 1709 clients, printers deployed through print management GPOs). I'd be backing away from Windows 10 over this but the intel CPUs in our new laptops don't support W7, so yay for that.

 

I guess I'll be working my way through this thread trying everything suggested, but it doesn't look too hopeful..

[mdrabble]

I suspect staff are no longer reporting missing printers - which could lead to a slippery slop of not reporting other issues.

[Katy]

I'll post my solution once I've had time to tidy up the code and knock together some instructions - basically a powershell logon script which maps printers based on the computer name, or the security group the computer is in. It means manually keeping a list in the script but it runs an infinite (... well not quite it gives up after 10 attempts) loop on adding the printer until it stops failing (when debugging it mapped on second go through the loop), since changing over to this I've had nobody report printers randomly not mapping. No promises on when I'll get round to it as we're on summer holidays now so busy cabling/decorating the new office then moving everything.

[Patrick]

I'd love you forever if you post it!

[thegavna]

Has anyone managed to solve this? I've tried everything I can possibly think of with no luck. We have deployed Win 10 education int 1803 over summer but this bug is driving me nuts. Will show no printers installed on first logon and then appear fine on subsequent logins.

 

- Tried a new print server 2012 r2 using latest Type 4 driver

- A combination of Point and Print policies

- Hardened UNC paths

- A combination of different startup policy processing times from 15 - 60 seconds

- Disabling logon script delay

- A vanilla win 10 1803 install with no customisation

- Printers deployment methods such as group policy preferences, deployment from server using comp or user.

- Additional registry setting: [TABLE=class: subtable]

[TR]

[TD]SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Value name[/TD]

[TD]Device[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Value type[/TD]

[TD]REG_SZ[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Value data[/TD]

[TD]\\printserver\sharedprintername,winspool,Ne01:[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

- combination of different printer scripts

- group policy refresh after login does not add the printer

 

My only work around at the moment is to make the printers listed in the directory to add manually or get them to run a script to add them. Just wondering how have people worked around this issue?

[grahamd22]

have you blocked cortana and search ui? We have had to go to each PC that has a desktop printer and install it locally so it can be held rather than MFP as they seem to be ok?

[FN-GM]

It seems to be working ok when I check "List Printer In Directory"

[Arthur]

There are a couple of printer related fixes in this months cumulative updates.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4346783/windows-10-update-kb4346783

 

• Addresses an issue where not all network printers are connected after a user signs in. The HKEY_USERS\User\Printers\Connections key shows the correct network printers for the affected user; however, the missing list for network printers from this registry key isn't populated in any app, including Microsoft Notepad, or in Devices and Printers. Printers may disappear or stop functioning.
   
   
  
• Addresses an issue that prevents printing on a 64-bit OS when 32-bit applications impersonate other users (typically by calling LogonUser). This issue occurs after installing monthly updates starting with KB4034681, released in August 2017. To resolve the issue for the affected applications, install this update, and then do one of the following:
   
  
  • Use Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit to globally enable the Splwow64Compat App Compat Shim.
     
     
    
  • Use the following registry setting, and then restart the 32-bit application:
     
    

    [b]HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print[/b]
    
    [b]Setting[/b]: Splwow64Compat
    [b]Type[/b]: DWORD
    [b]Value[/b]: 1

    
    

[arjanver]

How you do the gpupdate after the user has logged on?

[Patrick]

Anyone know of a way to install the above fix on 1709?

[mulderite]

Tried installing the update on one of our affected 1803 workstations and it still didn't map any printers. Oh well, it was worth a try..

[arjanver]

Anyone know of a way to install the above fix on 1709?

Would like to know also. Damn Windows 10.

[johnpd]

Just started using 1803 since summer rollout and we have papercut with Konica mfp. Had one user with no printers today so I’ll be keeping a close eye on this thread !

[eddyc]

We’ve also moved to Windows 10 / 1803 over the summer and are having issues with intermittent printer connections/having to restart the spooler on the print server to give things a kick/etc. Also following this thread with interest

[gshaw]

Are you mapping with GPP? Try the old-school GPO Deployed Printers route and see if it's more reliable - certainly was for us (on 1709)

[arjanver]

Are you mapping with GPP? Try the old-school GPO Deployed Printers route and see if it's more reliable - certainly was for us (on 1709)

And what is the old school way?

[Duke5A]

Still using 1607 LTSB here with printers being handed out via GPP with item-level targeting. Seems to be running great. I'm not getting crazy with the targeting though...only using computer and user object locations in AD as a qualifier for who gets what.

 

What I have noticed is the print spooler on the server running 2016 still needs its backside continually wiped just like it has with older server versions. I have two scheduled tasks to do this: one that runs at 2am the runs the script below to delete stuck jobs, and second, a reboot that runs at 2:30am to bounce the entire server. Some print jobs have file locks on them and absolutely refuse to be flushed from the queue.

 

Don't think this would have anything to do with deployment issues others having, but my setup other than this is pretty vanilla.

 

EDIT: Should also add we're using local profiles here on both student and staff computers. The student computers run Deep Freeze for the most part, so I don't worry about the profiles adding up on shared systems.

 

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\cimv2")
Set colInstalledPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Printer",,48)

On Error Resume Next

For Each objPrinter in colInstalledPrinters
objPrinter.CancelAllJobs()
Next

Edited September 11, 2018 by Duke5A

[gshaw]

And what is the old school way?

 

@arjanver GPO Deployed Printers rather than Preferences, you can't set the default (I use a logon script for that) but it does the mapping at machine level and seems a bit more stable under 10 than GPP

[Driftingashore]

@arjanver GPO Deployed Printers rather than Preferences, you can't set the default (I use a logon script for that) but it does the mapping at machine level and seems a bit more stable under 10 than GPP

 

Well for what it's worth we're having this issue and we're using GPO deployed printers (through print management). I'm at the point of despair where I'm going to upgrade the print server from 2012r2 to 2016 and hope for the best. I've always despised the concept of deploying printers with scripts (idk, I guess I feel like it shouldn't be necessary ), but it looks like we could be heading that way.. ugh.