When will printer return to default settings

[paulvernon63]

We have a printer shared via Group Policy and Print Management.

 

To save money management wish the default settings to print in black and white. Users can change to colour output if they wish to.

 

If they do change to print in colour, should the settings be reset to default (black and white) at any time? When the group policy is applied at login, for example?

[DavR]

This one was always a bit of a pain to manage Paul, but in my experience, you cannot change printer defaults AFTER a printer has been deployed. If it was deployed as a full colour printer, then people who already have that printer will continue to see it as a full colour printer. You can change the defaults to BW, but that will only take effect for new connections.

 

When I've had to do this, I've either deleted and recreated the new printer with the BW defaults, OR, found the correct colour settings in registry and deployed these by GP prefs.

 

People can usually choose at print time to turn colour on in their Preferences, but when set up correctly, this should be for a single print only (excepting Publisher which is a law unto itself...).

[paulvernon63]

Thanks Dave. It's the last point we seem to be having a problem with. Users are changing to print in colour and the settings are staying that way for future prints. I'm sure I'll figure something out. Thanks again. Paul.

[DavR]

In that case, I would say your best bet is to find the registry settings that control colour / BW, and push out the correct settings by GP prefs.

 

They're usually under HKCU\Printers\Connections if I recall.

[bald_pig]

Here it only lasts for that print, it sounds like your users are saving a new default when they shouldn't be.

[paulvernon63]

Thanks again, Dave.

[Foresthippy]

I'm just guessing here, but could you deploy them with group policy preferences and put a delete printer in before an update printer item, in that order? We use vb script to deploy printers and I often put a delete at the beginning of the script to remove printers from peoples' local profiles which retain their defaults. Doing this removes any settings they've changed and then re-installs the printer with the defaults set at the server.

[Arthur]

To save money management wish the default settings to print in black and white. Users can change to colour output if they wish to.

I normally setup two print queues. One for mono (the default) and the other for colour. That way they are less likely to go into the settings.

[paulvernon63]

Thanks jd. We deploy with Print Management and group policy, not a script; that might be "old-fashioned" nowadays, I don't know. I'm guessing that the printer isn't removed that way, just added if it isn't there.