How to publish printer

[Guest]

Hi I am trying to set a group policy so its automatically map the printers
they need in their Printers folders...is ipossible to that through group
policy..
Thanks

 

[Denis Wong @ Hong Kong]

Hi Naved,

Publishing a Printer in Windows Active Directory
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q234619

br,
Denis

 

[Alan Auld]

That's great Denis, but I think he was asking how to set a group policy so
that users don't have to perform the step you outlined a printer in Active
Directory. The Q article you refer to describes how to add a printer in
active directory.

Alan

 

[Shaune]

I've been waiting for an answer to this one for years!

 

[Denis Wong @ Hong Kong]

As far as I am aware of, there should be no builtin policy to add a printer.

Pls correct me if I am wrong.

br,
Denis

 

[lforbes]

Hi I am trying to set a group policy so its automatically map
the printers
they need in their Printers folders...is ipossible to that
through group
policy..
Thank

Hi,

The answer is No. Group Policy doesn’t add printers. Publishing in
Group Policy usually is done automatically but that only means that
users can add printers using AD to search for them. However, they
still have to manually add them.

There are two ways to do this automatically.

Network Printers are added to the users profiles. Therefore they will
stick to the user no matter where they go. This ’can’ be a problem
if users roam around a lot.

I use two ways to automatically add printers.

1> Use the Lovely Bat file as a startup+logon script. If set as a
startup script the batch file will add the printer to the computer’s
Default User and make it available for everyone. I also use it as a
logon script because with XP for some reason the Default Users
printers don’t show up.

This is the command. The first one adds the printer. The second sets
the default. If you want more options type rundll32
printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /? at the command line.

rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /q /n "\ServerPrinterName"
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /y /n "\ServerPrinterName"

2> Use KixScript. I love it and I even prefer it to the Above Batch
File because I can have 1 file for all printers instead of one per
printer. I have the Kix Script set as a startup and logon script. You
need to get your hands on the Windows con2prt.exe file as well.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Assign Default Printer to Workstation Script ;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;; Declare Variables
;; Specify printer share in UNC format

$LIBT630="\ServerLIBT630"
$RoomNumber=substr(@wksta, 1, 4)

;For Adding Groups of Computers that all start with the same 4 letters

IF $RoomNumber = "R18-"
cls
color n/w
$msg="Please wait for login to complete..." + chr(10)
? $msg
color w/n
shell "con2prt /f"
shell "con2prt /cd $LIBT630"
? "User " + @USERID + " authenticated to network" + chr(10)
ELSE
ENDIF

;For Adding Individual Computers by computer name

IF @WKSTA = "R12-002"
cls
color n/w
$msg="Please wait for login to complete..." + chr(10)
? $msg
color w/n
shell "con2prt /f"
shell "con2prt /cd $LIBT630"
? "User " + @USERID + " authenticated to network" + chr(10)
ELSE
ENDIF


Cheers,

Lara

 

[Gregg Knapp]

It's not possible to deploy printers via Group Policy, that I'm aware -
Would certainly be nice!

I've used rundll32 to assign network printers to end users here for some
time with good results. Microsoft has a basic description of the utility
here -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;189105

There's much better documentation for it in the resource kit. Maybe that'll
help you out.

Gregg Knapp