Disappearing Printers

[Garacesh]

Thats what the batch file does, -executionpolicy bypass, At some point we will be looking into signing the scripts but with everything else that goes on its finding the time!

 

If the user is allowed to use -executionpolicy bypass, can you not just call the script with it?

Edit: Ah you updated with the actual command.

Yeah, that. Can the user not just run that command? Doesn't W10 natively support powershell as startup/logon scripts?

[rosslaing]

If the user is allowed to use -executionpolicy bypass, can you not just call the script with it?

Edit: Ah you updated with the actual command.

Yeah, that. Can the user not just run that command? Doesn't W10 natively support powershell as startup/logon scripts?

 

Only as Login scripts through Group Policy

Edit: The user doesnt have access to the command line either, so this is the reason its in a batch file. Gives them something to run in case of it failing on login.

Edited October 2, 2018 by rosslaing

[Garacesh]

Huh. Well TIL. Sorry for this little tangent lol.

[JATSO]

All working fine here Svr 2016 and Win10Edu-1803.

The images of the GPO settings for printer deployment at this site that works are below, pretty basic set of policies used here.

Although at my other school a teacher did raise an issue yesterday as I was leaving, bit late then but will look at it on Friday.

 

 

[rosslaing]

Huh. Well TIL. Sorry for this little tangent lol.

No Problem

[arjanver]

All working fine here Svr 2016 and Win10Edu-1803.

The images of the GPO settings for printer deployment at this site that works are below, pretty basic set of policies used here.

Although at my other school a teacher did raise an issue yesterday as I was leaving, bit late then but will look at it on Friday.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]50406[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]50407[/ATTACH]

Do you use 2 policies as i see in you're screenshots?

[JATSO]

Yes I noticed that, weird i know but it works and I always work on the assumption that if it isn't broke don't try and fix it.

[Sheridan]

I used to use machine policies to deploy printers with W7 and it worked reliably but I gave up with 10, maybe I’ll deploy them with every method to increase my chances of success!

[arjanver]

I've fixed it by placing a vbs script that runs a gpupdate command in our redirected startmenu in the startup folder. And seems to works great.

 

Wondering if 1809 has solve this.....but probably this new version brings another load of bugs.

Edited October 5, 2018 by elsiegee40
Language

[eddyc]

Just as an update, despite making the changes that Arthur suggests, we still found this really hit and miss with some users getting no printers at login. Very strange \ annoying!

 

I was at a networking event and spoke to someone else about this and they suggested using group policy preferences, and then having each printer listed twice. Once with a create and then again with an update. I have done this, and touch wood the issues seem to have gone away.

 

Might be worth a try for those of you who are still having issues.

[bigal06]

Just as an update, despite making the changes that Arthur suggests, we still found this really hit and miss with some users getting no printers at login. Very strange \ annoying!

 

I was at a networking event and spoke to someone else about this and they suggested using group policy preferences, and then having each printer listed twice. Once with a create and then again with an update. I have done this, and touch wood the issues seem to have gone away.

 

Might be worth a try for those of you who are still having issues.

 

Interestingly enough we do something similar. We have a script that installs the printers at login based on machine name so they get the correct printer for that location. Since moving to Windows 10 - we got the intermittent printer issue so I now install the printer twice in the script and it works 100% of the time. I still haven't worked out what the cause is but installing the printers twice is a work round for now.

 

Unfortunately we are now seeing an issue where the login script is freezing at the point it installs the printer and this is the first time it installs not the second. This only happens when switching user and only in the classrooms. I cannot replicate the error when testing so it must be some application one user has open that is stopping the second user logging in. Driving me mad!

[Arthur]

Just as an update, despite making the changes that Arthur suggests, we still found this really hit and miss with some users getting no printers at login. Very strange \ annoying!

 

I was at a networking event and spoke to someone else about this and they suggested using group policy preferences, and then having each printer listed twice. Once with a create and then again with an update. I have done this, and touch wood the issues seem to have gone away.

That might explain why I haven't had any issues. I also use GPP, but with the Replace action rather than Create/Update.

 

In theory with the Replace action you wouldn't need each printer added twice.

 

[bigal06]

Currently testing GPP and just using Replace has intermittent results where as having printer install twice with create and then again with an update seems to work all the time. We have mandatory profiles so need to set the printers each login. Hopefully this will fix our login script issue by moving the printer installation to GPP.

[dfergusson]

Currently testing GPP and just using Replace has intermittent results where as having printer install twice with create and then again with an update seems to work all the time. We have mandatory profiles so need to set the printers each login. Hopefully this will fix our login script issue by moving the printer installation to GPP.

 

Is that listed under the same GPO?

[bigal06]

Is that listed under the same GPO?

 

Sorry - i have create and then replace but yes on the same GPO

 

[Katy]

Currently testing GPP and just using Replace has intermittent results where as having printer install twice with create and then again with an update seems to work all the time. We have mandatory profiles so need to set the printers each login. Hopefully this will fix our login script issue by moving the printer installation to GPP.

This is similar to the solution I do (which is a loop in powershell attempting to add each printer until it stops erroring) - that always maps on the 2nd run through.

[bigal06]

This is similar to the solution I do (which is a loop in powershell attempting to add each printer until it stops erroring) - that always maps on the 2nd run through.

 

I did read about your powershell script solution but wanted to come away from scripts since we are having issues with switch user and scripts freezing at the printer install line. Our script installs the printer fine and logs in great as we ask it to install the printers twice but seems to lock up on switch user randomly for some reason when it goes to install the printer for the first time.

[Katy]

I did read about your powershell script solution but wanted to come away from scripts since we are having issues with switch user and scripts freezing at the printer install line. Our script installs the printer fine and logs in great as we ask it to install the printers twice but seems to lock up on switch user randomly for some reason when it goes to install the printer for the first time.

To be honest if we only had a couple of printers I'd be binning it for your solution - as it's basically the same ("map this printer twice cause it randomly fails the first time sometimes"), unfortunately it'd take about a week to re-add every printer back in, with item level targetting, twice!

[bigal06]

To be honest if we only had a couple of printers I'd be binning it for your solution - as it's basically the same ("map this printer twice cause it randomly fails the first time sometimes"), unfortunately it'd take about a week to re-add every printer back in, with item level targetting, twice!

 

Haha - I know and if this test works in one area then I'm going to be busy changing it over during half term!

[ass17]

We map them twice with a small sleep/wait in between. Works for us!

[Chuckster]

We map them twice with a small sleep/wait in between. Works for us!

 

How do you achieve this, @ass17 ?

[ass17]

How do you achieve this, @ass17 ?

We still map printers via VBSCRIPT.

 

We map printers for each people based on AD Group membership and location of the PC they are logging into.

 

The printer connection itself is done via a .net exe I wrote which literally is this:

 

rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /q /n "Path to printer" /u

 

if that fails it calls it again after a 1 second sleep.

[gshaw]

Just as a heads-up the disappearing printer issue seems to have started rearing its ugly head in places for us too now, even with the GPO deployment.

 

All was fine until the past week or two so I'm suspecting Microsoft may have bugged it again in the last Cumulative Update

[rosslaing]

Just as a heads-up the disappearing printer issue seems to have started rearing its ugly head in places for us too now, even with the GPO deployment.

 

All was fine until the past week or two so I'm suspecting Microsoft may have bugged it again in the last Cumulative Update

Although we would get this occasionally, I agree, in the last week or so, it has been much much worse, I was thinking the same that the Cumulative update has done something.

[gshaw]

Although we would get this occasionally, I agree, in the last week or so, it has been much much worse, I was thinking the same that the Cumulative update has done something.

 

Glad I'm not going mad!

 

Currently trying adding an extra line to our set default printer script to map the printer first so if it doesn't already exist from the GPO it gets mapped by VBscript instead. Seems to be giving some strange results on my machine but trying on some classroom machines for a better test.