map a drive or add a printer in the group policy?

[Eric]

Hello,

Is it possible to map a network drive and add printers
within the policy? (without having to use policy maker)
And if so, how?

Thank you for your time.

Eric

 

[Kevin Sullivan]

Hi Eric,

You will probably want to put that functionality into a script. You have
choices here. The old tried and true batch files are still supported. The
language is a bit convoluted if you need to have logic in there such.
Usually there would be a logon script (now deployed as a part of Group
Policy) for each group such as managers etc. So you may end up having many
batch files.

This would essentially be logon scripts with lines like:

Net use G: \\<server>\<share>

Net use H: \\<server>\<Share>\%username%

The 'modern' way of doing this is with the Windows Script Host and a true
scripting language like VBScript or Jscript. You would use the
WScript.MapNetworkDrive method which would look something like this:

Set GroupDrive = WScript.CreateObject ("Wscript.Network")

GroupDrive.MapNetworkDrive "G:", "\\<server>\<share>", True

The previous would instantiate the Network object and call the
MapNetworkDrive method. The second line is probably self explanatory except
for the 'True' at the end that simply says to make the drive mapping
permanent.

OK, so now you have the 'script' and then you will associate the script to
one of the four events that can call scripts in Group Policy. From the
computer settings you have Startup and Shutdown. These are usually not used
for drive mappings. Under User Settings there are logon and logoff scripts.
This is usually where drive mapping scripts are maintained.

I hope some of this is useful. I feel your pain in not being able to justify
the cost of third party software. It is sort of a catch 22 in that small
organizations usually have less money to spend on IT related projects but
doing without third part support usually requires a higher level of
technical expertise and to manage and maintain and that is usually more
expensive in the long run.

Best regards,

Kevin Sullivan

AutoProf

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

If you feel happy using an ADM file to do drive mappings, you could try the
following administrative template:

http://www.willowhayes.co.uk/download/drives.adm

You may need to change the view settings for the drive letters to show up.
"Connect as" can be left blank. Test it fully for your environment before
putting it into production.

Regards

Oli