Cannot print to any printer on any machine with certain usernames

[Griff]

Confusing title but I really don't know how else to describe this problem we are having;

 

Nearly 6 of our users so far cannot print to any printers from any machines in the school, they recieve the following message;

 

"Windows cannot print due to a problem with the current printer setup. Try one or more of the following:

*Check the printer by printing a test page from Windows.

*Make sure the printer is turned on and online

*Reinstall the printer driver"

 

Nothing in the system has changed in terms of permissions, groups etc etc.

 

 

I have tried the following;

 

- Deleted profile off the machine and re logged on

- Remove them recieving a PDM

- Deleted the user and recreated them with a new account in AD

- Renamed an account that we know works with a username we know that doesnt

 

Finally adding a 1 after the username has presented us with a decent work around for now. Intriguied to see if anyone here can shed some light?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Michael]

How are the printers shared in your school - via USB (connected to a workstation) or via ethernet, so they're hosted on your primary server?

 

Are you publishing printers in Active Directory, or manually pointing to shares \\Server Name\Printer Share Name ?

 

Do you have a Curriculum and Admin domain or a single domain?

[sven]

How are you deleting the local profile on the machine?

 

Right click "My Computer" > Properties > User Profiles > Advanced

 

That's always the best way of gwetting rid of them rather than simply deleting "C:\Documents and Settings\%username%". Michael's asked some sensible questions there. Let's see what you come back with.

[Griff]

Thanks for the replies guys.

 

We set the printers up with a static IP address then add it as a local printer on our main server then we share it. We add it to the users desktop using mandatory profiles.

 

I would appear the system I setup for removing profiles on logoff hasn't been working at all so any recommendations on how we can remove them would be great? However I tried someones logon on a computer we just setup yesterday and still the same problem.

 

We have one single domain for everyone.

[sven]

As for your removing of profile on logoff, there is a thread about this topic here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/10621-delete-profile-logoff.html

 

If it's working for some users and not others, then you're going to have to take a look in AD and see what the differences are between the users. Do users within the same OU have the problem, or is it only users within a certain OU?

[Michael]

We set the printers up with a static IP address then add it as a local printer on our main server then we share it. We add it to the users desktop using mandatory profiles.

 

I would recommend using either a script or even better Group Policy to deploy printers. You can do this on 2003 Server R2 and later.

[Griff]

I would recommend using either a script or even better Group Policy to deploy printers. You can do this on 2003 Server R2 and later.

 

Thanks for the advice Michael. Our 2003 box is not running the R2 version. I am attempting to setup server 2008 print management and using that to distribute the printers..if thats possible just reading up on it now.

 

As for your removing of profile on logoff, there is a thread about this topic here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/10621-delete-profile-logoff.html

 

If it's working for some users and not others, then you're going to have to take a look in AD and see what the differences are between the users. Do users within the same OU have the problem, or is it only users within a certain OU?

 

Cheers for the link sven I will get to work implementing this tomorrow thats a real help.

 

Now you mention it the problem is only appearing for our teaching staff who are in a seperate OU to everyone else, I have matched everyones accounts in AD and there are no obvious differences. Will try and move a few users into another an OU with people who are know can print and see what happens.

[Michael]

setup server 2008 print management and using that to distribute the printers..if thats possible just reading up on it now.

 

Yes it is possible and is simple to use. You can share printers from the server itself (recommended), and/or you can deploy a printer shared from a workstation too. You can also deploy printers based on per user or per computer basis.

[sven]

the number of problems we had with HP drivers in Server 2008 R2 eventually forced us to move back to Server 2003. To be fair, we have a lot of older printers that will be replaced this year which can only have made our situation worse. It's worth checking out compatibility BEFORE you start moving all your printers over

[Griff]

The issue with the user names has been resolved after moving to the print management solution thanks for all the help guys. It has also made life with printers alot easier in terms of distributing them to certain users and machines.