Deploying Printers based on membership group

[penfold]

OK, I've raised a few threads recently in relation to moving our print server from 2003>2008 and while I'm at it I'm trying to tidy up our current print deployment. At the moment there are lots of scripts being used, and while it works it has proved to be a bit of a headache for me to collate everything together to apply updates so we are now looking at an easier way of doing it through group policy deployment.

 

I've looked online and I can find it pretty straightforward to assign to an OU (computer or User) but we only have one OU for staff and we cant create seperate OU's for each department because we have people in multiple departments. What I'm trying to do is deploy all the printers for the member of staff depending on the department they are in (those in multiple depts can get multiple printers) and I don't know if this is possible to do?

[tumbleweed]

With Group Policy Preferences, you can do Item Level Targetting, and one of the options is Security Group Membership - should be straightforward.

[FN-GM]

@penfold We assign it to the parent OU then create a group and set it so only users or computers in that group can apply to group policy under the security tab.

[penfold]

Turns out I was looking at deploying the printers via Computer policy>Deployed printers and I couldn't see the Item Level Targeting option.

 

I've now added it to the User Config>Preferences>Printers and can see the additional tab.

 

Thanks all...just got to test it now

[ricki]

@penfold We assign it to the parent OU then create a group and set it so only users or computers in that group can apply to group policy under the security tab.

 

I would do it this way having the different ou's with the approprate member in each ou and applying a policy to the ou that deploys the printer.

 

Richard

[penfold]

I would do it this way having the different ou's with the approprate member in each ou and applying a policy to the ou that deploys the printer.

 

Richard

This is what I would have done but I cant do it by OU as some member of staff cover different departments and so would need to be in multiple OU's. I've managed to do it by groups using Item level targeting and those in multiple depts will be able to get the printers from both departments but chose their own default.

[penfold]

OK, having a little problem with this now. I seem to have been able to get it to work to some extent, but it seems a little weird. I have set the printers per group membership and it will install the printer for a user. However, if I move a user out of the membership the printer still shows. I have selected the option to remove this item when it is no longer applied but it still shows. Is there anything else I need to select.

 

I would ideally like to setup all the printers for each department and then depending on which group a user is assigned to, they will recieve the appropriate printers but not keep any if they are removed from that membership.

 

Ignore the post ...just added a delete all first and it seems to work...also found more info on this thread

Edited July 19, 2012 by penfold

[penfold]

Update - I've set the printers to deploy based on computer OU and have a few printers installed so that if there is a problem with one printer they have an alternative one to use. The problem is that the default doesn't always seem to apply as as a result we have prints being sent twice when they think it hasn't been sent and using credit they didn't need to.

 

They way I have set it is like this Library Printers 1&2 are installed to computers in Room 1 & 2 OU - no default set. Then I have an udpate to set the default printer for Library Printer 1 to Room 1, Library Printer 2 to Room 2. But it seems that it doens't always apply the correct default when a user logs on. I think it only seems to be when a new user logs on and once a user has logged in once, it seems to set the correct default printer. Any ideas where I could start looking?

[penfold]

Update - this seems to be that the first time a user logs on they don't get a dafault printer, after that the default is set on logon. Any reasons why it isn't applying the first time a user logs in?

[penfold]

Can anyone shed any light on this? Would really like to move away from scripting but we can't if a default can't be reliably set on initial logon.

[gshaw]

Are your users on roaming profiles? To ensure everything is clear before we start mapping we added an additional entry (level 1 on the list) to Delete All printers then start from scratch on each logon. That way if a user moves to another machine you don't get crud building up in the printer list.

 

Also seeing as it's a Monday double check the order the preferences are applying in... note that the window doesn't auto arrange by default so although your Update preference might look in the right place it could be applying before the mapping or something along those lines.

Edited September 3, 2012 by gshaw

[penfold]

It doesn't seem to make much sense. I have now set it to delete all printers (1st in the list) and then create the connection to all the printers. I have then added an addtional preference to update the printer required to the default printer. The way I now have it set is as follows :

 

- Delete All Printers

- Create All Printers

- Update printer to set as default.

 

If I log on with different user account I get All printers but incorrect default, or correct default but not all printers listed. It seems as though it is running through the GPP setting printers too quickly and as a result doesn't apply the settings correctly. On logging on a second time all the correct settings are present.

 

I did try adding all the printers and setting the default in 1 go, but that gave similar results so I thought I would break it down and see if it would help but it didn't solve the problem:(

[penfold]

OK, now if I log in as a user and find that it selects the incorrect default printer, Ican force a GPUpdate and it then selects the correct default. So am I right in thinking that there is either a slow connection or some delay when the GPP are being applied and is there a setting I can change to prevent a user from logging in before the GPP have all taken effect?

[gshaw]

Synchronous policy processing GPO?

[penfold]

Synchronous policy processing GPO?

OK, I've been looking at this for so long I can no longer see...where do I find this setting so I can check it? I have set "wait for the network at Startup & logon" but is there somewhere else I need to be looking?

[penfold]

OK, after much reading and changing settings I still couldn't get it to apply all the printers and set the default reliably on first logon. I've ended up using a logon script which runs a gpupdate and all the printers show correctly. It's not the way I wanted to do it, but it works so for now I'm going to leave it as I need to get other stuff done.

[Duke5A]

I just kept printer deployments in scripts. I thought about GP, but we've got so many printers in the district (about 200) I was afraid of turning AD into a policy minefield. I already had AD fairly well organized and staff/student machines tightly named so writing a printer deployment script that could install printers based on a number of criteria wasn't very complicated. Matter of fact, then entire printer sub fit within two pages. I posted an example in a blog post.

 

VB Script for network printer deployment - Blogs - EduGeek.net