Question on adding printer drivers to RIS/Unattended Image

[Kyle]

We will soon be having new laptops for teachers on a 3 yr rental agreement. Over the past 6 months a lot of staff have had stand alone printers for their desks ( non IT rooms) The printers are Brother 2030 laser printers. We must have over 20+ of these now but originally htey came in ones and twos and were installed manually. i dont fancy the prospect of doing this again.

 

Is it possible to add printer drivers to a RIS/Unattended image so that when one of these printers is attached by USB it will be automatically detected?

 

is it possible to add printer drivers to a image anyway?

[ChrisH]

I have never had to do this as we run everything from a print server but I suppose if you set all the printers on one computer and copy over all the files it usually distributes to the clients from that location which escapes memory at present to your ris install that may work.

Otherwise im sure alot of setups will have a silent option as well.

[tarquel]

Cant say for RIS but with a UA CD/image, you should be able to define custom folders where additional drivers exist. Providing the printer is attached to the laptop during install lol and its a not a awkward install [i.e. requiring the software first atho the other idea you could try is after this bit] then it should install during install of XP.

 

Another way instead of defining a custom dir is to just preinstall the setup of the driver during the setup of windows - be it in batch form manually run at the end or through the many ways of install apps afterwards. If the driver package can be installed silently/automated, this should help. The only prob would be that you'd have a printer installed on laptops where you dont have a printer installed - tho some driver packages wont add a printer until you plug it in - the idea way in your case.

 

Hope that makes sense and i read your post right

 

Regards

Nath

[tosca925]

I'd be interested to know this as well.

[damienharrison]

if you go to printers and faxes then file -->server properties and then the add drivers tab you should be able to add all the drivers you need