Purge old server from clients

[djones]

Short...

 

What would be your suggested methods for purging old server names from client's registries?

 

Long winded...

 

I'm trying to remove the original DC from a network and have an issue with the name still appearing in clients registries - connected with old printer settings. I've had the old (now demoted) server turned off for the past week to see if any issues are thrown up and have had reports of the font list in Word taking an age to display and Word crashing randomly at other times. This doesn't appear to be an issue with all clients although every computer is identical (from the same generic image).

 

On restarting the old server this morning, these issues seem to have resolved themselves which led me to check the registry of one computer experiencing issues. Sure enough, there were old printer entries pointing at the old server despite these printers being long gone and removed from the client's printers list.

 

Am I safe to simply delete these registry entries or is there a better way? And, if this works on one client, what would be the best way to go about removing these entries on all clients?

 

Thanks,

 

Dave.

[AngryTechnician]

The case of the slow font drop-down in Microsoft Word « The Angry Technician

 

The old server name is being referenced in a part of the user registry, so it will need removing on a per-user basis. I used Group Policy Preferences to do it, but you could do the same with a startup script that calls reg.exe

[djones]

Office 2003 here but yes, seems the same issue. However, I don't have any font related old entries in the registry just old printer ones. I'll have a play tomorrow - I use GPP to add/amend registry entries already so that was going to be my first attempt at en mass removal.

[djones]

Just to update anyone who's interested...

 

...it was indeed the issue that AngryT pointed out above. I set up a Delete rule in GPP for the following registry entry:

 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\FontBmpCache

 

This has worked without having to resort to clearing out gerzillions of profiles! However, I've a feeling there maybe more oldie type entries lurking around!