Win 2003 TS printer questions

[Brad Smith]

I have found the article:
Best Practices for Installing and Using Printer Drivers With Windows 2000 Terminal Services
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];331055

and haven't found and equivalent atricle on how this relates to Win 2003 TS. I have a Win 2003 TS up in a test environment. I have installed NO PRINTERS on the server and yet if I connect RDP clients to it and select Printers on the local resources tab when connecting, the clients get their printers exposed in the TS session.

With all of the noise I've seen about problems with printer drivers on TS I want to lock down what printer drivers I install very tightly.

Even though the local policy mentioned in the above article is set to enabled on the TS server (Prevent users from installing printer drivers) the clients are still getting printers.

Our environment involves hosting an in house developed client/server app on our VPN for accounts that are so small they cannot justify getting their own servers and hardware.

Can anyone shed some light on what 2003 is doing WRT to printers and what the equivalent 'best practices" are for printers on TS?

Thanks in Advance

 

[Vera Noest [MVP]]

First the documentation for printing in 2003 TS:

Terminal Services and Printing White Paper
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/tspri
nt.mspx

294429 - Printer Redirection Architecture in Windows Server
Terminal Services
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=294429

I think that you are worrying too much. The warnings that you have
read about not installing printer drivers on the TS are about 3th
party printer drivers. Those are often not TS-compatible. But all
of the printer drivers that come with the operating system
("native" drivers), are completely TS compatible and should not
cause any problems like a crashing spooler.

The fact that your users got their local printers autocreated in
their ts session must mean that they use printers that have a
native driver on the server.

If you want to disable redirection of local printers alltogether,
then you have to disable redirection of LPT ports in TS Connection
Configuration or with a GPO.