A Printer Script

[mullet_man]

Thanks Ric,

 

At the moment I have around 6 rooms all setup great in the script.

 

I have setup to the 3 letter inspect.

 

I have two rooms one called RM2 (pcs called RM2-01 etc) and another called RM15 (pcs called RM15-01 etc)

 

So the script picks it up ok, but in Science we have laptops named S-01 to S-30, so I cant use S- as that is 2 letters.

 

And if I bring the inspect down to 2 letters it would pick up RM2 and RM15 as the same rooms?

 

If I could use a split how would I put that in? I am very limited when it comes to scripting.

 

Thanks and hope that makes more sense!

 

Ste.

[mullet_man]

Hi Ric,

 

How would I implement the split?, looking at the script I would need to have two different inspects to help with the science laptops.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Geoff]

Well you could nest it in the RM case

 

Select Case (Left(computerName, 1))
Case "r"
            Select Case (Left(computerName, 3)	
                               Case "rm1"
                                        'RM15 stuff here
                               Case "rm2"
                                         'RM2 stuff here
                                Case Else
                                         'catch all for anything else called 'RXXXXX
                   End Select
     Case "s"
               'S- stuff here

[mac_shinobi]

It would be something along the lines of :

 

Dim x, strComputer

 

x = split(strComputer,"-")

 

Select Case x(0) '<-- change the value in between the brackets

 

Case "RM01"

wshnetwork.AddwindowsPrinterConnection

 

Case "RM02"

wshnetwork.AddwindowsPrinterConnection

 

End Select

 

 

if you change the value in between the brackets for x(0) or x(1) then it will return the characters before or after the split character which in this case is the hyphen because your computer names all have RM01-01 or RM15-02 or whatever which is a common character so we use the common character to split the string.

[mullet_man]

Thanks Geoff

 

That worked great

[Andi]

Would this script work with Thinstation clients? They connect using the GUID that AD sets them, but presumably I can set their client name somewhere so that it reflects the room they are in?

 

If that is the case then how would I run this script on a thinclient?

[Andi]

Bump?

[Geoff]

What are you using server side for your thinstation clients? Citrix? Terminal Server? Something else?

[Andi]

Terminal Server

[Ric_]

Indeed it does work on ThinStation (as I use it on ThinStation).

 

You need to give your machines sensible names in the thinstation.hosts file... something similar to this will do:

 

# HOST      MAC            GROUPS               COMMENTS
#donald      003103014152   it_kb hi_res         # Donald Ducks Computer

RM1-PC01	0050044716AB
RM1-PC02	0007E996B6B6

RM2-PC69	000BDB56E8A3

 

You then just run the script as a login script and Bob's your uncle

[Geoff]

Are your thinstations pushing out unique %CLIENTNAME%'s?

[Andi]

I see, thanks Ric. Now this is probably a stupid question (it's Monday) but do I run it in the usual user login script? Won't this then run on all stations slowing the logon?

 

Geoff, I believe they are yes, but I will need to check first.

 

I apologise if I'm being slow

[Geoff]

The script runs on the terminal server.

[Andi]

Do you mean to set it in the Environment tab of the Terminal Server Config?

[Andi]

Actually scratch that, I've just found this page for the login script section.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/195461

[Andi]

Sorry guys,

how can I manually set my TS clients ID? Currently it's picking the MAC address. I've tried manually creating a computer account in AD with the correct GUID but it's not working.

[Geoff]

As per Ric's reply, the thinstation.hosts file.

[Andi]

Ah yes, I see.

 

Thanks for your help. I'll be back I'm sure

[Andi]

This is all looking good so far, however the script isn't running at logon. I have added the vbs script to %systemroot%\system32 and told the registry to call it as in the Microsoft link above. However, it isn't running.

 

Any ideas?

[Geoff]

You must run the script at machine startup and user login otherwise the printer drivers are not installed correctly (due to users not having enough permissions to load printer drivers).

[Andi]

How can I run the script at machine startup on a thinclient?

[Geoff]

You don't. You run it on the Terminal Server.

[Andi]

Sorry Geoff, you've confused me. I have to run the script to connect the printers at the terminal server startup?? This hasn't been mentioned anywhere else in this thread.

[Ric_]

I think that Geoff has muddied the water slightly...

 

You need to have ALL the printer drivers installed on your terminal servers. You can do this with a script such as the following:

 

' Startup script to add network printer drivers at startup
' Author: Ric Charlton, 11/04/07

' Declare variables and enumerate existing printer connections
On Error Resume Next
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set WshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")
Set oPrinters = WshNetwork.EnumPrinterConnections

' Delete existing connections to network printers
For i = 0 to oPrinters.Count - 1 Step 2
           On Error Resume Next
    if Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "lpt" And Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "usb" then
            	WshNetwork.RemovePrinterConnection oPrinters.Item(i+1), true, true
           else WScript.Echo "No network printers found"
           end if
Next

' Add printer connections
' Variable to select print server
Dim printServer
printServer = "debian-02"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\PRINTER-01"
WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\PRINTER-02"
' Add more printers here by copying above lines

' Delete connections to network printers
oPrinters = WshNetwork.EnumPrinterConnections
For i = 0 to oPrinters.Count - 1 Step 2
           On Error Resume Next
    if Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "lpt" And Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "usb" then
            	WshNetwork.RemovePrinterConnection oPrinters.Item(i+1), true, true
           else WScript.Echo "No network printers found"
           end if
Next

 

If you run the above script at startup, it will ensure that all your printers are always available to the computers since users generally do not have sufficient priviledges to install printer drivers.

 

You then need to run the printers.vbs script as a login script (best called from a GPO... User Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Scripts).

 

No changes need to be made to your thin client devices (except giving them meaningful names).

 

BTW Andi.... could you please add your location to your profile?

[Geoff]

Yes, otherwise the Terminal Server will not have the drivers for the printers installed correctly. Thus they don't get setup correctly when the users login. Thus no/missing printers.

 

See these prior threads on the subject:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=5736

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3653

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=445