Little-Miss Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 Thought id start the week off with another of my silly question... I've just swapped out our manky Epson C1100's for some Kyrocera 5300's. I've installed the printers on the servers and use a VBs script to share the printers out to the correct people. I'm having issues where the printers are occaisionally printing out gobbledeegook. My instinct is to say its a driver issue, but if im right the clients should get the drivers from the server. Any other suggestions what it could be?
sted Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 the drivers should be pulled down from teh server yes as long as the server has an appropriate driver for that architecture (x64/x86). Might be the drivers is a) pants b)slightly wrong so say a 1100 driver and an 1001 printer (random mondel number) or maybe the user profile has a driver built in if you used the same printer name / sharename as an old printer i sometimes have issues can also complicate things if its a win7 box and 2003 server as it will probably attempt to use its own driver 1
featured_spectre Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 What are the clients using? (Operating system) Do your clients have the drivers installed?
Gerry Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 I've had a couple of similar problems to this last year. Try a different driver to start with. I usually start with PCL6, then if there's a problem I try PCL5 then PS. If neither works properly, I try to find an older driver. It's also possible the printer has a problem. To test that you should try bypassing the server and printing direct to IP (might want to try with a USB connection too if possible). 1
Little-Miss Posted January 17, 2011 Author Posted January 17, 2011 Ooh, one thing i forgot to mention but Sted did is that i've used the same share names. XP Clients & 2003 Server.
featured_spectre Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 have the clients got the drivers installed as well?
Little-Miss Posted January 17, 2011 Author Posted January 17, 2011 Well no because i assumed that they were going to pull the drivers from the server?!
featured_spectre Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 doesn't always happen with XP as I found. Put the drivers on (PCL 5, 6 and PS - just to be sure) then try again. 1
Little-Miss Posted January 17, 2011 Author Posted January 17, 2011 Tut...that sucks... Can't i deploy them somehow then!?
featured_spectre Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 You should be able to tell group policy to do it for you as the server already has them (at least I would assume so from what you have put)...if you cant, then you can create an MSI which should do the install for you but deploy that via GPO.
teejay Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 doesn't always happen with XP as I found. Put the drivers on (PCL 5, 6 and PS - just to be sure) then try again. If you do this, make sure the drivers on the PC's and the server are exactly the same revision number.
Little-Miss Posted January 19, 2011 Author Posted January 19, 2011 Ok, im being a real numpty. I've set the printers on the network to be using the driver which i think is correct for the model. But im finding that netbooks are still printing rubbish so im wondering if they havent picked up the new drivers......how can i push out an inf?
featured_spectre Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 a VBS script should do the job, I will try to write one up later (if I get the time)
Little-Miss Posted January 19, 2011 Author Posted January 19, 2011 Oooh, is it something i can add to my current VBs Script that i currently use to assign the printers?!
featured_spectre Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 quite possibly! Would you mind posting up the script you have now?
Little-Miss Posted January 19, 2011 Author Posted January 19, 2011 on error resume next Set WshNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network") Dim Compname Compname = WSHNetwork.ComputerName if left(compname,8) = "JNRCLASS" then PrinterPath = "\\curricsvr1\JUNIOR-SUITE" PrinterPath2 = "\\curricsvr1\LIBRARY" WshNetwork.AddwindowsPrinterConnection PrinterPath WshNetwork.AddwindowsPrinterConnection PrinterPath2 WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\curricsvr1\LIBRARY" end if and so on and so on....
2097 Posted January 20, 2011 Posted January 20, 2011 are the new printer shares the same as the old brand of printer ( same port etc ) ? if so it might be getting a tad confused .. try a different ip for the printers and a different share name Enable Loopback so you can assign the printers by OU heres my script i use to add first remove old printers then add some new ones ON ERROR RESUME NEXT Set WshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network") 'Remove old printers WshNetwork.RemovePrinterConnection "\\SERVER\MusicBWLaser", True, True 'Install new Printers WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\SERVER\MusicBWLaser" 'set default Printer WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\SERVER\MusicBWLaser" 'Clean Up Memory Used Set WshNetwork = Nothing wscript.quit 1
Little-Miss Posted January 20, 2011 Author Posted January 20, 2011 Yeah, starting to think it was a bad idea literally replacing the printers and not changing share names or IP's Without messing with assigning printers to OU's at the moment. Is there a way i could add that to my current VBs script?
teejay Posted January 20, 2011 Posted January 20, 2011 There is a much simpler way with 2003/XP to map printers rather than Group Policy or login scripts. This remotely adds a network printer to a machine permanently (well, unlees the machine is re-imaged or the delete cmd is run). Just create a batch file as per example attached and run it once, see attached zip file.MapPrinters.zip 1
Little-Miss Posted January 20, 2011 Author Posted January 20, 2011 Very cool Teejay. As a quick fix, would renaming the printers help? For example ive got STAFF-ROOM, would changing it to STAFF ROOM help?
teejay Posted January 20, 2011 Posted January 20, 2011 Should do, but I would avoid using spaces in printer names.
teejay Posted January 20, 2011 Posted January 20, 2011 Your being too kind to staff, call it something like KY27MFP ;-)
Little-Miss Posted January 20, 2011 Author Posted January 20, 2011 lol! Noooo, i'm making my life easier cus this way i dont have to talk to them to explain which printer is which!!!
2097 Posted January 20, 2011 Posted January 20, 2011 maybe StaffroomBW or StaffroomColour i like to label them like that to stop them sending stuff to the wrong one.. id suggest using loopback processing and assigning printers by Computer OU Its a lot easier I have never had printer or driver problems .. apart from the occasional fudge up when something gets stuck I also really think this is a sharename/IP problem so give the printer a new IP and create a new port for it .. and change the sharename.
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