Group Policy Printers... speeding up

[CyBeRkId2002]

I am currently trying to speed up our logon process (particularly on shared laptops) and at the minute GPP Printers seem to be delaying logon. 

 

Before I look at scripting the whole thing (isn't massively complex so should be fairly straight forward) could I check - how are drivers handled for printers deployed using GPP?  Are they redownloaded each time?  That is the only thing I can think of that is adding a delay.  If I script driver install on the devices does this speed things up?  I imagined as we have Point and Print to allow non-admin installs they get installed at first connection and then are available on the workstation for all users, but this wouldn't explain why it takes time to process at every login.

 

Logon time is around 1-2 minutes on a laptop (slightly longer if lots logging on at once), around 80% of this is sat on the Group Policy Printers step.

[thimon]

I had the same long login times due to printers. I’ve now ditched deploying printers via GPP and use PaperCut Print Deploy instead. If you’re using PaperCut, I highly recommend looking into Print Deploy. 

[RobFuller]

Echo @thimon words, just works. I know it's not the cheapest but worth in IMO.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Yeah, we do use Papercut but have been trying to avoid paying more buying the 'zones' add-on.  If you don't mind me asking, how many zones are you typically using, and how much are they per annum.  Think we could possibly get away with 10.

 

Back to the original problem, it seems the printers are added and availble in print management really quickly (seconds) so don't think it is drivers, but the adding printer prompt doesn't disappear for a little while which I think is what is adding to the printer delay.  Assume this is related to some kind of communication between client and printer after being added.  Anyone else have this issue with Konica Minolta printers?

[machy]

If you remove all printers and try adding them manually and see how long it takes? 

We haven't used Konica in a few years, but I do vaguely remember having to update a driver for speed reasons. 

Also, with it primarily being laptops, do you have "wait for network at login" turned on?

 

From a practical point, we always have issues with printers just not deploying, do I built a bit of software that runs after the user has logged in which adds the printer. It basically runs the same windows thing scripting it would, but is just cleaner and can be silent.

[mavhc]

Can you use driverless printers https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/modern-print/windows-protected-print-mode/windows-protected-print-mode ?

[Julian]

Are you using a Version 3, or Version 4 printer driver? (Microsoft printer driver specification, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/print/v4-printer-driver)

With version 3 driver, the driver gets installed on the local computer.

With version 4 drivers, “Microsoft enhanced Point and Print” driver is installed on the local computer, and the device specific driver is only installed on the print server.

As the “Microsoft enhanced Point and Print” is part of Windows, setting it up is fast, particularly if you have multiple printers all using this driver.

[thimon]

@CyBeRkId2002 We only have one print deploy zone, as it was crazy money to purchase more. We deploy the two Find-Me print queues to all users, setting the B&W print queue as the default. Other network printers we set as optional printers, please see attached image. We set permissions on both the print server and PaperCut for these optional printers, so only the desired staff can print to those. If anyone else tries to add them they get an error message.