Printing to a network printer, on a laptop, which isnt on the domain or authenticated

[Ambient]

Interesting one here,

 

One of the schools is support have a number of laptops which arent on the domain. The laptops in question are a mixture of XP, Vista and 7.

 

Now, some of these laptops are conneted to the available network printers, and they can print to them with no problem (no prior windows authentication needed), however, other ones wont print (without authenticating with the server first, by doing "\\servername" for example)

 

I can't quite figure this one out.

 

Ideally, every laptop should be on the domain, but, i dont think its an option in this case.

 

I know that an option of having standalone laptops is to set the local username and password the same as the active directory information for that user, but, in this case, the "working" laptops arent set up like that.

 

Any help would be ace.

 

Many thanks

 

p.s - i've only just started looking after these networks.

[K.C.Leblanc]

To be honest I use this as ammunition to have the laptops on the domain.

 

Can you set the laptop to print direct to the printer's IP address?

[glennda]

Do you use papercut? there is a facility inside this that can be used to upload a file to the papercut server and then it prints out the files from there

[SHimmer45]

you could set up a dummy printer queue on the domain, then have a small script that is on the laptops which are off the domain which maps to the dummy printer queue. (or the actual printer you wish to use)

 

so set a "printer account" on the domain and then use this account in the script running on the laptop this will provide your authentication.

once the laptop is authenticated you can print and connect to other resources as required.

have used this quite alot to provide printing etc.

Id suggest using an account with has very limited privileges as you may find you want to actually store that login in the script on the laptop.

[sted]

if the laptops user matches a domain one it can authenticate that way so say user on the laptop is teacher password teacher if you create a matching account in ad it will authenticate quite happily. Another option is to create a script and place it in the laptops all user startup something like

 

net use l: \\server\laptopsavearea /user:domain\teacher "teacher" (also gives them a network backup location) then run a vbs script to add printers or allow them to add manually

[tommej]

We set local logins the same as the users domain login as mentioned above. Edited September 30, 2010 by tommej

[fiona_b]

Have a look at webprint by papercut papercut web print tour - Google Search and Printeron PrinterOn - Mobile Printing Solution for PC/Laptop