Deploying Printers to 7/2008 R2

[Michael]

Hello all,

 

There appears to be two ways of deploying printers in 2008 R2:

 

- Print Management

 

- GPP (Group Policy Preferences)

 

Which method are you using and why? TIA

 

And if anyone has used a guide they found online, please post a link to it!

[featured_spectre]

Print management, something I learnt on a server 2008 course.

 

Why - because all machines get imaged with all drivers and this has been far more reliable than group policy

[glennda]

When i first started using you couldn't assign a default printer with Print Management (not sure if you still can).

 

I just kind of made it up as a i went along.

 

Setup Policy's per computer OU and enabled user group policy loopback processing mode so that user policys assigned to machines can be applied to users logging into that machine.

[plexer]

Res Software Workspace Manager Express

[featured_spectre]

You still can't but if there are more than 1 printers it defaults to the most used printer. Horses for courses I would say @Michael

[Michael]

My understanding is that both methods are using Group Policy.

 

When you deploy a printer using Print Management, it appears under either or both:

 

User Config > Policies > Windows Settings > Deployed Printers

 

Computer Config > Policies > Windows Settings > Deployed Printers

 

GPP is simply a different method of deploying printers which is why I am asking the question!

 

I'm just trying to establish which method is better. Print Management 'appears' better and more automated in terms of deployment.

 

I also have two sites who use photocopiers (different makes) with built in print management. So for example you can print to 'Store', by selecting this on the driver, but for some reason Windows 7 seems to lose its settings.

[glennda]

Are they Ricoh Photocopiers? I had all sorts of issues with server 2008 r2 and windows 7 clients and the Ricoh Print drivers. It wouldn't print landscape or pther features via the server. Although it would if setup directly (using the same driver) it would print directly.

 

The Server had the win 7 x86 drivers loaded onto it.

[featured_spectre]

If your image of W7 includes every printer device in your school (and you push out drivers for all new devices - except Ricoh photocopiers which are a royal pain in the backside) then print management is the best way IMO.

 

It is more automated in the sense that its a few clicks and done, rather than having to look through all GPPs that you have to ensure that the printers are there. This takes that hassle away. Whilst yes there are no default printers it is easily remedied when the user logs in as it stores on their profile wherever they log in to (well provided you have a locked down roaming profile - EG no storage on C:\, all on server shares etc).

 

I would be more than happy to help you with this if you need it

[User3204]

Are they Ricoh Photocopiers? I had all sorts of issues with server 2008 r2 and windows 7 clients and the Ricoh Print drivers. It wouldn't print landscape or pther features via the server. Although it would if setup directly (using the same driver) it would print directly.

 

The Server had the win 7 x86 drivers loaded onto it.

 

I had this problem too, but when I connected it through the server, it used some "Universal PCL Driver", which didn't work, wheras locally it used a Windows 7 one. I haven't gone back to it, but I'd been hoping I could load the Win 7 drivers onto the server to make it work...

 

 

I can MAKE the print server do landscape, but then they can't do portrait...

[glennda]

I'm pretty sure mine was using the Win 7 driver ( i choose it specifically - and went into sharing/additional drivers and loaded the driver back to the server) and it still didn't work

 

ricoh denied all knowledge!

[featured_spectre]

I had mine the same way...used W7 32bit drivers specifically for the image, deployed it, no joy...went round manually and it worked fine (but doing 400 machines manually was not fun!)...Ricoh said it was a bug they were looking into, and this was nearly a year ago and nothing changed. But I digress. As I said if you need a hand I am happy to help (on site if needs be - we could sort something out) but always at the end of a PM as well

[glennda]

It works fine with 2k3 r2 but not 2k8r2 so something with 2k8r2

[6Foot2]

I started using Print Management because my old method of deploying printers using scripts stopped working when we moved our network over to Windows 7: 64 Bit [We were using KIX scripts]

 

When I looked for solutions and I found that I could use Print Management at a workstation or at a server it seemed like the way to go as it would solve my problems and it seemed easier to manage that my previous solution.

 

HTH.

[Michael]

Are they Ricoh Photocopiers? I had all sorts of issues with server 2008 r2 and windows 7 clients and the Ricoh Print drivers. It wouldn't print landscape or pther features via the server. Although it would if setup directly (using the same driver) it would print directly.

 

The Server had the win 7 x86 drivers loaded onto it.

 

Ricoh and Canon. In both instances the driver seems to lose specific settings, such as 'Print to Store' (Canon) and 'Secure Print' (Ricoh), which is the same thing, just named differently.

 

There are x64 and x86 drivers (same versions) on the 2008 R2 Print Servers (separate domains). I'm using the manufacturer drivers and not Windows 7's own drivers, which are basic in comparison anyway. The basic drivers do not have advanced print features.

 

This evening I noticed a setting I'd not seen before in Print Management. There's an option on the context menu labelled 'Set Printing Defaults...' and these were different from the server itself. I've changed these settings, so I'll see what happens tomorrow.

[ruddj]

I use GPP as I can set the default printer for different labs.

I assign the printer using a user GPP but then use the Item Level Targeting with the workstations OU to assign default based on WS location. Allows very detailed filtering and seems to work well.

[mrbios]

GPP, it seems far more reliable for me personally, this is how mine's setup:

 

Single policy attached to the computer accounts

Merge loopback processing mode

Point and print restrictions disabled/"Do not show warning or elevation" (in other words just go ahead and isntall the driver)

Then under User configuration of the policy all the printers are added as shared printers twice - one as a delete policy, the other as an update policy.

Item-level tagging is set so that the delete policy removes the printer from ALL machines except those specified in the item level tagging section.

 

Works flawlessly, the last way i did it i would keep getting roaming profile users have printers get attached and then as they moved around the school they would pickup 5-6 printers each taking over the default, it got messy.

 

EDIT: attached 2 images so it makes more sense to anyone that does it differently. I should also add i used 2-3 other methods in the past, scripts, print management and another method of GPP and each one gave me loads of grief until i used this method.

Edited October 25, 2011 by mrbios

[sparkeh]

I use GPP as I can set the default printer for different labs.

I assign the printer using a user GPP but then use the Item Level Targeting with the workstations OU to assign default based on WS location. Allows very detailed filtering and seems to work well.

Ditto, works a treat for us.

[mcrompton01]

We use GGP as we can set the default printer to the laser, we also use item level targetting based on the Computer being a member of security group for example SEc KNG-PR-B01-LAS. This way we can allocate printers to staff who teach in multiple departments and have a mobile workstation.

 

No working great for us, when the user logs on they get the printers from the last room (and the last room only) plus the ones they are supposed to get.

[Michael]

Thanks for all the feedback chaps. Here's some interesting info for you all!

 

At one site I support they use Canon photocopiers, including all the management/print to store function. In a 2008 R2/Windows 7 environment using Print Management, printing was incredibly unreliable. Printing sometimes reached a users mailbox and sometimes it didn't.

 

This happened when using the latest PCL5 and PCL6 drivers. I then found that Canon have their own printer driver referred to as UFR II. This works perfectly, with no error messages and printing jobs is faster too.

 

With this success, I've noticed Ricoh have their own driver also referred to as RPCS, in addition to their PCL5 and PCL6 drivers. Does anyone have any experience using their RPCS driver in a domain environment? Many thanks!

[ChrisH]

The Ricoh RPCS drivers did not allow us to put the codes for printing to the photocopier. Other authentication methods may work fine.

[dhoward_westexetc]

When i first started using you couldn't assign a default printer with Print Management (not sure if you still can).

 

I just kind of made it up as a i went along.

 

Setup Policy's per computer OU and enabled user group policy loopback processing mode so that user policys assigned to machines can be applied to users logging into that machine.

 

So with this then, would the printers be deployed to the user's config as opposed to the computer config?

 

I am trying to work this out because I am thinking I may have to change to using policy preferences with loopback to be able to set the default printers correctly. I want to ensure that the B&W ones are set as default, and at present with our Windows 7 network it is a mixture of B&W and colour as default.

[Michael]

The Ricoh RPCS drivers did not allow us to put the codes for printing to the photocopier. Other authentication methods may work fine.

 

Thanks for this. We're just using the latest PCL5 driver with the Secure Print option enabled. Users enter their code on their profile and jobs go to their mailbox. Generally speaking it works OK. Are you saying the RPCS driver doesn't support the Secure Print option at all?

[ChrisH]

There is no tab for the code with that driver.

[Davit2005]

Print Management installs the printer on the machine and are deployed on a machine policy. Preferences just connects to a shared printer.

 

There is still no way of setting default printer thru Print Management alone.

 

I use a combination of both and use Item targeting to set a preference default to the printer for the area where the machines are based.

[glennda]

So with this then, would the printers be deployed to the user's config as opposed to the computer config?

 

I am trying to work this out because I am thinking I may have to change to using policy preferences with loopback to be able to set the default printers correctly. I want to ensure that the B&W ones are set as default, and at present with our Windows 7 network it is a mixture of B&W and colour as default.

 

Yes you set the shared printers as per user and then enable User Group Policy loopback processing in the computer config to merge (of the same policy). It then applies the user policy to any users who login to that machine only.