Shared Printer preferences don't work

[Sheridan]

What is it with W10 and printing, does any part of it actually work!

 

Now I've noticed the shared printer server printers we've deployed using GPP (i.e specify the printer IP and the server name \\server\printer) simply print direct to the printer and bypass the server - missing any quotas or restrictions.

 

And the old deployed printers policy no longer works in Windows 10 - so how on earth are you supposed to deploy a shared printer to a PC and not a user! We need to continue using this to make sure people are printing to the printers in their room - but it looks like this is broken as well.

[Duke5A]

Place the GPO on the user OU and use item level targeting on each printer to selectively deploy them - in this case you can specify that the computer the user is logging into must be in a particular OU to receive the printer. The policy runs for all users, but the printer is deployed only if conditions are met.

 

Using a print server? When adding a printer to GPP select 'Shared Printer' and not 'TCP/IP Printer'. The only thing you should need is the share path to the printer, nothing with the port/IP.

[Katy]

Place the GPO on the user OU and use item level targeting on each printer to selectively deploy them - in this case you can specify that the computer the user is logging into must be in a particular OU to receive the printer. The policy runs for all users, but the printer is deployed only if conditions are met.

 

Using a print server? When adding a printer to GPP select 'Shared Printer' and not 'TCP/IP Printer'. The only thing you should need is the share path to the printer, nothing with the port/IP.

 

This is what I do, it works as expected in general although for some of us they still only map about 90% of the time with no fix (see the other windows 10 printing thread)

[fredbayker]

We’ve found it to work just fine with Windows 10 clients deployed from a 2016 server. As Duke5A said, use the shared printer option and place GPO on the users OU.

Item level target either user security groups and/or computer OUs

[Katy]

We’ve found it to work just fine with Windows 10 clients deployed from a 2016 server. As Duke5A said, use the shared printer option and place GPO on the users OU.

Item level target either user security groups and/or computer OUs

 

Might try updating my servers, the DCs and print server are all still 2012R2. It's odd as it's random where and when it doesn't map.

[Sheridan]

I’ll give that a go. We want printers deployed based on the room they’re in which is a fairly common requirement. Works fine in W7 but fairly broken in 10. It’s a bit overkill having to put all of my printers GPOs on the users OUs and targeting them to the PC OUs but everything about W10 is a workaround at the moment.

[free780]

Adding printers per machine is possible. But making the printer the default is a user setting. A logon powershell script maybe the way to go.

[Sheridan]

Adding them as a user GPP and targeting them to the Computer OU seems to be working so far. I'm now looking at a possible GPO where quite a lot of printers are in as GPPs (even though only 1 or two will be applied, depending on the computer logged into)

 

Has anyone using user GPPs and targeting noticed any impact on login speeds - presumably scanning the list of printers and applying the relevant ones will have some overhead?

[ADMaster]

Adding them as a user GPP and targeting them to the Computer OU seems to be working so far. I'm now looking at a possible GPO where quite a lot of printers are in as GPPs (even though only 1 or two will be applied, depending on the computer logged into)

 

Has anyone using user GPPs and targeting noticed any impact on login speeds - presumably scanning the list of printers and applying the relevant ones will have some overhead?

This is how I deploy printers. I think the longest bit is installing the driver if it wasn't already there.

I used to have 15-20 printers in the list, since setting up follow me that has been reduced.

I've never put a watch on it, but I don't think our log in times are too bad.

[Katy]

It's not added much time unless you're on an ancient PC which is slow anyway, the one I just logged on to was about a 60 second delay (although it felt like about 5 minutes) - we don't have any that old in classrooms though (this was an old one we stuck in a distant server room "just incase" we needed to get on and poke switch configs or something)

[Sheridan]

Thanks for the info folks, I'm building a set of two GPOS (staff only printers and shared) so that should minimise the delay as much as possible. I haven't noticed anything as yet with about 15 printers!

[Duke5A]

Thanks for the info folks, I'm building a set of two GPOS (staff only printers and shared) so that should minimise the delay as much as possible. I haven't noticed anything as yet with about 15 printers!

 

 

I wouldn't worry about the number of printers in the GPO. I've got 57 in mine and this GPO is attached to the root of our user OU, so it's processed for all students and staff. Verbose processing is turned on, so I can see what Windows is working on through the logon process. Printers is up for only a short period of time, and if the user doesn't qualify for any printers it's just a blip. Number of printers in the list that the user doesn't qualify for doesn't seem to have any bearing on logon time.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Duke5A

[rosslaing]

You could do individual User GPO's and attach them to Computer OU's and use loopback processing, although like most folk have said, mapping Printers in Windows 10 has been a real hit and miss event, we jumped in at 1511 and it was a nightmare and we were scripting out printers which worked fine with W7. In the end we had to go to adding local printers to 6000 machines just to get the users back up and running while we figured out what was wrong(Local Printers had their own issues!). Tried updating all our print servers to Server 2016 which was needing done anyway, universal drivers, the works, nothing helped. In the end 1703 came along and the mapping of printers was much better again, still get the odd users not getting them but easy fixed since they have a shortcut to the script in the start menu to add printers. We are now on 1709 and I have re-written our old script from VBS to powershell (maps printer based on OU PC is in). The shortcut to the script is GPO'd out to the startup folder on the machine so this runs once the user is at desktop, rather than a logon script, so reduces the amount of time for their logons. Works well, most of the time..................... Edited March 27, 2018 by rosslaing

[chazzy2501]

I've been running into this issue and can never get 100% success. I've triple mapped the printers using scripts (vba and ps1), gpo policy and preferences. I've now just had to add printer shortcuts into resources that will allow pupils to add a printer if it does not appear.

[rosslaing]

Yeah, we are also not 100% using the scripts, however I reckon we must be close to 99%, we also use local profiles now and UEV so once its mapped, it sticks on that machine for them. Every time the script runs its just refreshing the printers so they should always have them once the script has run successfully once. We have also put the shortcut to the script in the startmenu for them, and all the users know, if they are missing printers, they just need to run the script and they appear. Normally they appear in a few seconds since someone else has already mapped them previously on the machine, the drivers are already down from the print server.

[Sheridan]

I'm having some success with this method, but not 100% - its still taking two logins sometimes for the printers to appear and there doesn't appear to be a pattern to it.

 

It really is about time MS got the basics working in this OS.

[gshaw]

Got a variant of this using GPP in the User Configuration but applied to machines as a Loopback Merge policy. Again seems to work most of the time but had a few not map until second logon (mostly on Wi-Fi, which is struggling at the moment due to age and lack of density in AP deployment)

[Katy]

I'm having some success with this method, but not 100% - its still taking two logins sometimes for the printers to appear and there doesn't appear to be a pattern to it.

 

It really is about time MS got the basics working in this OS.

There is also a bug where it doesn't set the default printer as instructed on first logon - looking into it, it runs the "set the printer as default" bit before it finishes the "add the printers" bit and the official workaround is "log off then back on again" or "run gpupdate once you are logged in".

 

I just don't understand how they have managed to break something which used to work without fail every time somebody logged on.