Printer mapping

[mrbios]

How are you guys doing your shared printer mapping in windows 7?

 

Previously our layout has been like this:

Custom .exe called beforetheunderscore which looks in \\domain.local\netlogon\machine\XXX where XXX is the name of the PC before the under score (all our PCs are called PCNAME_PCNUMBER)

That folder then had a script.bat in it which mapped the relevant printer, and in order to call up the before the under score file the users logon script set in AD contained drive mappings followed by the start to the printer mappings.

 

Now that was a pretty bodge job long winded way of doing it in my opinion, and im after simplfying it, from what i can tell i have these choices:

1.Current .bat files

2.Power shell

3.WMI

4.Group policy

 

So 1. is out of the question, 4. ive been playing with this morning and found that it works brilliantly when mapped to a printer under computer configuration but i cant get the shared map under user configuration bit to work so i need to play with that a it more, 2. ive looked into and it looks like it may be a bit too much like 1. where it gets a bit messy. 3. i don't know anything at all about and was just a recommendation from someone else so any information you lot can give me on that would be good.

 

Which have you chosen and why? (or if different please specify and explain!)

[jamesreedersmith]

Use group policy preferences and client side extensions in server 2008

 

They are great, easy and fast.

[box_l]

as above!

[mrbios]

Could you elaborate/give me some technical information please? i've never done it any other way than by the custom batch files we've had since i started here

[jamesreedersmith]

Drive maps - Group Policy Team Blog : GP Preferences Will Reduce Logon Scripts : Mapping Drives

 

Printers - Set Default Printer with Windows 2008 Server Group Policy Preferences - Set the Default Printer via Group Policy | Windows Server Administration

 

Or technet is also good

[mrbios]

Fantastic, thats what i had started playing with from the looks of things though having only just delved into it i hadn't realised there was a client side piece of software, thank you for the information, that's definately the way ill be working it from now on!