GPP Preferences & printer drivers behaviour

[gshaw]

A quick qu, does anyone know how GPP handles print drivers when running as a Logon script? Reason being I'm trying to speed up the mapping at logon, takes around 20-30 seconds which isn't hideous but I think could be better.

 

Have noticed that it's slower over wireless so I'm wondering if part of the process is downloading the drivers each time, regardless of whether the machine needs them or not. I've noticed that when we've updated drivers machines get them straight away so I'm guessing GPP does reinstall them, question is whether it does it each time or only when it detects a newer version available.

 

If it is reinstalling each time is there a way to change this behaviour so it only reinstalls the driver if a) machine doesn't have it or b) server driver is newer than the client's driver?

[ChrisMiles]

GPP doesn't handle printer drivers at all. If your printers are shared on a print server, Windows will download drivers only when the one on the server is newer or when there isn't a local driver available. This behaviour is the same no matter how you connect to shared printers. Are you sure that it's printers causing the delay?

 

Personally, I gave up using GPP for printers ages ago because of huge problems with HP drivers, we now use a client application to deploy printers which is nice because it doesn't slow the login down and allows for real-time updates to peoples printer allocations.

 

Edit: Just a random thought but might be worth checking that Windows isnt checking windows updates for a driver first.

Edited July 5, 2012 by ChrisMiles

[rich_tech]

GPP maps our printers here, doesnt effect our logins at all either on a mixture of Konica Minolta MFDs, Brother Laser Printers and HP Laser printers without major issues, you do need to make sure though that you upload the newest/correct drivers to the servers though, our print server is a 2003 server here and we use the 2008 admin tools on an administrative machine to get the drivers updated for our windows 7 machines on there though.

 

Make sure the preference specifies update option as well, not delete and readd/replace, I believe that can have some bearing on it.

Edited July 5, 2012 by rich_tech

[gshaw]

GPP doesn't handle printer drivers at all. If your printers are shared on a print server, Windows will download drivers only when the one on the server is newer or when there isn't a local driver available. This behaviour is the same no matter how you connect to shared printers. Are you sure that it's printers causing the delay?

 

Ye pretty sure as I've got verbose messages turned on during logon, the longest part is setting Printers Policy, accompanied by a flurry of HDD activity so initial thoughts suggest it would be, unless Windows is lying to me and it's a previous stage doing it. Might need to dig through whatever logs I can find to prove it conclusively though...

 

HP UPD was the latest version last time I tried it unless there's been something in the last 2 weeks or so. Printers are on Create as they get deleted on each logoff (mandatory profile)

 

It may well be perfectly normal speed but I like to try to eek every last bit of performance out of boot times, going from a powered off machine to usable desktop in under 1 minute with HDDs would be fantastic, if I can cut the printer section down a bit I reckon we can do it

 

Edit: I've been guilty of "Microsoft minutes" syndrome on this, the GPP Printers are actually taking around 10 seconds to run (map 2 printers, set one as default, HP UPD)

Edited July 5, 2012 by gshaw