Lose Printers Deployed by Group Policy

[Kathy Meegan]

Hello,

Our print server is a Windows server 2003 R2 with sp2. I am testing
distributing printers using Windows group policies via workstation, however,
I have run into the following issues:

1) Printers don't always deploy immediately upon reboot. It can take
several reboots and/or several days to deploy printers to workstations.

2) In my small testing group one of the workstations has been losing the
printers. The last time it happened was after the pc has been powered off
for about 5 days. After a few days the printers reappeared.

Any ideas on either or both of the issues?

Thanks, Kathy

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

I'm assuming you mean the Deployed Printer Connections feature

Are you running pushprinterconnections.exe from the domain GPO or from the
file on the local machine? Are you deploying machine connections or user
connections?

I know that disabling the Optimized Fast Logon will work better since the
connection require network access to the print servers. Configure the log
file to determine errors. -log


pushprinterconnections /?

Description: Reads Deployed Printer Connection settings from Group Policy,
and deploys/removes printer connections as needed.

Syntax: PushPrinterConnections
Parameters: -log

If -log is specified on the command line:
A per user debug log file will be written to %temp%.
A per machine debug log will be written to %windir%\temp.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Kathy Meegan]

Hi Alan,

Yes, we are running the pushprinterconnections.exe from the domain GPO and
deploying by machine connections.

Optimized Fast Logon isn't even configured.

Would I put the -log parameter on the GPO? I was hoping to be able to limit
it to a particular workstation.

Thanks, kathy

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

You can run pushprinterconnections.exe locally from the workstation after
logging in. Since you are deploying machine connections, you will need to
execute the application using the at.exe command from a cmd window launched
under administrative context. You will see the printers listed in the log
but the machine connections will not be created until the next user logs on.

c:\>at 8:50am c:\full _path_to\pushprinterconnections.exe -log
Added a new job with job ID = 1

you can check the job status using at.exe. I add this since I don't recall
how many times I've entered something invalid. If you see tomorrow for the
day check the time and am pm, the full path must to the exe be specified.

Status ID Day Time Command Line
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Today 8:50 AM c:\full
_path_to\pushprinterconnections.exe -log


\windows\temp\ppcmachine.log


Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Kathy Meegan]

Hi Alan,

I didn't understand what you wanted me to do to get a log on just one
workstation, however, I did add the -log as a parameter on the group policy
itself. After several reboots it finally created the
c:\\windows\temp\ppcmachine.log which included a listing of what policies
were applied. The ppcmachine.log file, however, was not deleted upon reboot
and continued to grow taking up hard drive space.

We are currently looking into syncronization between our Windows servers.

If you have any other suggestions please let me know.

Thanks for you help!
Kathy

 

[Kathy Meegan]

Some workstations have never received the printers and others get them and
then loose them every few days. It takes several days for the printers to
return once they diappear.

Anybody else having this problem? Any suggestions?

Thanks, Kathy

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

run rsop.msc to confirm the policy has been applied to the user.

Are these XP clients, win2k, or Vista?

The fact that the script only ran after several reboots indicates the
machine did not apply the policy on previous reboots. Now the hard part is
determining the reason why the machines cannot connect to the domain?

I'll assume the client machines are not all the same.



--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Kathy Meegan]

Hi Alan,

I am deploying the printers via workstation instead of by user. We figured
this would work better when people switch buildings.

After running rsop.msc the result was that "Computer Configuration" had a
red "X" through it for some kind of error, however, under "Computer
Configuration"/Windows Settings/Scripts I could see
pushprinterconnections.exe pointing to the location on the domain and the
correct policy listed under GPO name. The "Last Executed" column was blank,
however.

We did notice a the following new error in eventvwr prior to running
rsop.msc: Windows couldn't log the RSoP (Resultant Set of Policies) session
status. An attemt to connect to WMI failed. No more RSoP logging will be
done for this application of policy. The Help said to run wbemtest.exe which
we did and it appears we were successful in contacting the default location.

Yes, the clients are Windows XP. Most workstations are similar but you are
correct that they are not all the same.

It's weird though. I have some pcs that get the printers via policy but
then loose them. As you say it appears that at some point they got the
policy but all of a sudden don't get the policy so the printers are
uninstalled.

On the other hand, I have a least one workstation that has never gotten the
printers via policy.

Thanks for any help.

Kathy

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

the only time the per machine connections will be added or removed is after
running pushprinterconnections.exe in system context

on XP, pushprinterconnections.exe stores the machine printer connection data
in the regkey

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PPC

If there is no data here, there are no connections to be created for the
user when they log on to the machine.


user connections are stored in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\PPC

If the print server is x64 be sure to add the x86 drivers to the server. If
the client is x64 XP, be sure to add the x64 print drivers to the server.


I think Computer RSOP data can only be generated if the logged on user is
admin on the machine.
--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Kathy Meegan]

Thanks Alan,

Our Windows Admin believes this is dns related. I really don't know.
Sometimes it the policies run and somtimes they don't. If they don't run
they seem to uninstall the printers from the workstation. When that happens
neither gpupdate nor iconfig /release or ipconfig /renew seem to help.
Multiple restarts sometimes help but not more often then not we just have to
wait about 3 days for the printers to decide they want to show up again.

Thanks for the info on RSOP. The person who ran it was an admin on the
domain.

Have a good weekend!
kathy