Deploying Printers to Win 7 computers

[djameson]

I've read dozens of posts but haven't actually seen my situation. If anyone has any thoughts, they would be greatly appreciated!!

 

OS: Win7

Server: Win 2008 R2

Goal...to deploy different network printers to different laptops through GP or Printer Management.

 

 

Situation: We have up to 15 sets of laptops in mobile carts at our schools. Different carts are in different locations, therefore, they want to print to different printers in the school. ie.. ML1 wants to print to Lab 100, ML2 wants to print to the Media Center, etc. Our computer OUs are one for Desktops and one for Laptops per school. What is the best way to accomplish this? I'd rather not create 15 OUs under laptops but this is the only way I can think of.

 

Thanks in advance for your time.

[Michael]

You're correct, your only way is to have an OU called Laptops, with 15 sub OUs.

 

Move all the computer objects into these OUs, then create and link GPOs as required.

[soveryapt]

Well, you're other way is to create 15 security groups and use targetting in the print preferences of GPO (tis how I do it) .. but either way, you'd have to separate them out ..

[6Foot2]

I seem to remember a product that was offered to us by RM [correct me if I am wrong] for our vanilla network that would add a printer to a laptop depending upon where [geographically] the laptop was on the wireless network.

 

I can't recall the name [perhaps someone else can] Not usre if it would be suitable for Windows 7 as our network was XP at the time.

 

HTH.

[djameson]

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess we will have to look at multiple OUs under our current laptop OU.

 

Thanks again for the help.

[soveryapt]

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess we will have to look at multiple OUs under our current laptop OU.

 

Thanks again for the help.

 

Or use the security groups. If you're planning on using the built in Printer Preferences in 2008R2, it seems to like Security Groups over OUs (I tried to do it with OUs initially, but it just wouldn't deploy correctly, as soon as I changed to security groups I've had absolutely no issues).

 

If you want any pointers I'll try to help where I can with it as took me a while to get working, but works really nicely now and doesn't need additional scripting and what not, plus using custom ports in the Printer Management MMC means that if one printer happens to go down, it can easily be mapped to another as well if you're using the same/similar printer models for each area.

[TheScarfedOne]

Just done a blog post on this...so your luck is in! It more specifically relates to RDS and printers - but I think you could probably use some parts of it. Mainly, the GPO Preferences to map printers to a security group of machines under Computer Configurations - Preferences - Control Panel - Printers rather than User Configuration as I used.

 

Managing Printers in a Remote Desktop Environment - Blogs - EduGeek.net

[soveryapt]

Just done a blog post on this...so your luck is in! It more specifically relates to RDS and printers - but I think you could probably use some parts of it. Mainly, the GPO Preferences to map printers to a security group of machines under Computer Configurations - Preferences - Control Panel - Printers rather than User Configuration as I used.

 

Managing Printers in a Remote Desktop Environment - Blogs - EduGeek.net

 

Though if you do it under the User settings and set it as User Security Group > "Domain Users" AND Computer Security Group > "$Sec_Group_For_Specific_Computers" then you can map printers directly from the directory, otherwise you'll have to map via IP and point to your server, something I found a little problematic to use in with my print management software (PaperCut MF) but doing it in the user way like that then it worked brilliantly ..