Disappearing Printers

[ITHand]

@TSEARS How do you deploy yours printers? GPO, GPP, Users, Computers, with the powershell scripts of this page... ?

[RyanMcClean]

We too have had issues with printing, but currently use GPP and item level targeting which seems to work 90% of the time.

 

It might be worth keeping an eye on Paper Cuts latest development 'Print Deploy' essentially you install the queue on a reference machine and run a script which imports them to paper cut and you can then deploy to a specific IP Range or User Group to machines which have a client running on them. I have asked Paper Cut's support if they are planning on intergrating with AD to allow applying printers to specific OU's and the feature has been raised with their development team.

Edited January 23, 2020 by RyanMcClean

[TSEARS]

@TSEARS How do you deploy yours printers? GPO, GPP, Users, Computers, with the powershell scripts of this page... ?

 

We do it via User GPO with item-level targeting depending on which computer they are working on

[tri_94]

We have tried using these two reg keys and they seemed to work for us. However after a while the printers were greyed out until next reboot. Under investigation its because the regkeys have been marked for deletion. How did you get round this?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

Also found deleting the following keys also works good , stops printers coming with the profile ( if using roaming )

 

User policy Delete

 

Hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key path Printers\ConvertUserDevModesCount

 

Computer policy Delete

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Key path SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider

 

Also as mentioned in this thread , stop MS windows setting the default printer

[2097]

We have tried using these two reg keys and they seemed to work for us. However after a while the printers were greyed out until next reboot. Under investigation its because the regkeys have been marked for deletion. How did you get round this?

 

Thanks

 

In the end we just use PrinterMapper with AD Groups

 

Seemed to be the most reliable , haven't had any problems since doing this.

[Jaan]

Arrggggghhh it's 2021 and still have these issues! Can't help but think all the updates for the printnightmare issues aren't helping!

[grahamd22]

This worked for us:

 

Create a GPO and edit as:

 

User Configuration > Preferences > Control Panel Settings > Printers

Plus:

 

Computer configuration > policies > windows settings > security settings > local policies > security options > devices > devices prevent users from installing printer drivers: disabled

 

Computer configuration > Policies > Admin templates > printers > package point and print approved servers: enabled: 'enter name of print server'

 

Computer configuration > Policies > Admin templates > printers > Point and print restrictions

 

Users can only point and print to these servers: Enabled

 

Enter fully qualified server names separated by semicolons: 'enter name of print server'

 

Users can only point and print to machines in their forest: Enabled

 

When installing drivers for a new connection: Do not show warning or elevation prompt

 

When updating drivers for an existing connection: Do not show warning or elevation prompt

 

Computer configuration > Policies > Admin templates > System > Driver installation > Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these device setup classes: enabled

 

Allow Users to install device drivers for these classes: 'get driver class from printer drivers inf file and enter it here

 

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2331393-gp-not-deploying-printers-to-all-users

[Jaan]

***Thread Zombi***

 

We've started to see this again this week...... anybody else?

[georgeescott]

***Thread Zombi***

 

We've started to see this again this week...... anybody else?

 

We've started seeing an increase in printer mapping issues the last week or so too.

 

Only fix we've found for it so far is to delete "C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Registry.pol" and "gpupdate /force".

 

 

Have been using this command to get the latest error codes for it though:

 

$computer="computernamehere"

Get-EventLog -LogName Application -Source "Group Policy Printers" -Newest 5 -ComputerName $computer | Where-Object {$_.EntryType -eq "Warning" -or $_.EntryType -eq "Error"} | FL TimeGenerated,EventID,EntryType,Message

 

What error(s) are you getting?