Vista and Group Policy

[User3204]

Well, I thought we'd managed to avoid Vista, but it's either Vista or XP.

 

We have a couple of Mustek A3 scanners, that DT want to use, unfortunately there is no Windows 7 drivers, and the Vista ones don't work on Windows 7.

 

I either use these two scanners, or buy a new one at £500 ! ha ! no chance.

 

 

So anyway, plugged in, I loaded Vista into my WDS server, and deployed it onto a machine, but it fails to load the computer side GPOs. The user ones are fine.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions ?

 

I can't see any errors in the eventvwr, it's in the right OU (the same as the Windows 7 machines that work), all the devices in devmgmt seem happy.

We skipped from XP to 7, so I have no idea what I'm doing with it. I've tried reboot, reboot, reboot, gpupdate, reboot - which always used to make XP work.

[TheMan100]

Does gpresult /r show the computer policies actually being applied?

[Michael]

I don't think there are any Windows 7 drivers available, as it already includes them according to Microsoft

 

Windows 7 includes its own scanner software which is pretty good and easier to use than some manufacturer software!

[SYNACK]

The GPOs and troubleshooting steps whould be the same as 7 as the OSs are very close.

[Michael]

I agree with Synack, Vista and 7 policies are pretty much identical. Just make sure you're using Vista with SP2, as this does fix a lot of problems.

 

There are something like 105 Post SP2 updates as well, so a lot of patching to do!

[User3204]

Does gpresult /r show the computer policies actually being applied?

 

Nope. It gave me an error.... something about not being able to access this... I'm not in front of it at the moment, so I can't remember exactly. This was whilst logged on as a Domain Admin too.

 

I have tried the Policy checker tool in GPMC, which tells me that the PPC server is inaccassible, so check the WMI

 

@Michael, it's not the software, it's the drivers... I have tried.

 

 

 

I'll head back towards doing all the 100s of updates for it, the trouble is, I know there's no Vista updates on my WSUS server... because I haven't allowed any of them.

[Michael]

There are some drivers for the Mustek ScanExpress A3 USB 1200 Pro (Win 7 32/64)

 

I'm guessing your scanner is the Mustek ScanExpress A3 USB which only appears to have Vista drivers?

 

You'll need Vista SP1 and Vista SP2, then run Windows Update for everything else. Realistically a couple of hours work, even on a fast machine!

[User3204]

Yep that's the scanner I have.

£170 when new, but won't work with Windows 7.... X(

 

I've sorted it, finally got the windows update to talk to the microsoft update server, and 100 odd updates later, it works. I think it was probably the one labelled "Group Policy Preferences"... bah! I've even managed to install the drivers, now I just have to work out how to use it, Windows 7 is nice, there's a builtin wizard, but not so with Vista, or if there is, I can't find it.

[SYNACK]

Windows Scanning and Faxing feature or something like that if I recall correctly.