Difference between revisions of "Deploy Printers with Group Policy"

Revision as of 01:17, 26 January 2013

As of Windows 2003 R2 you can install network printers via Group Policy.

Overview

One on the biggest pains about managing a windows network is deploying printers. Every user seems to need a different combination of printers. This creates a lot of overhead for admins.

Deploying Printers via Group Policy can save a lot of time, because you specify which users get which printers, then all you have to do is place the computer objects into the right OU and they get the printers they need. Taking it a step further if a computer object is moved because an employee/user takes on a new role or job, then rather than re-mapping their printers, you just move their computer object to the appropriate OU and the printers are automatically mapped.

Active Directory Layout

If you're planning on deploying printers via GPO, then you need to take some time and thing about the logical structure of your AD.

Since GPO' are applied at the Computer or User level, you should organize your OU's into two distinct groups. One for Computer based GPO's and another for User based GPO's.

I find that computer OU's should reflect the geographical location of the workstations, and user OU's should reflect the departmental location of the users. This allows for you to assign printers based on how close they are to a user and at the same time assign special printers (like payroll printers) to specific departments (even if the printer isn't located near by).

As with all GPO's if you deploy printers as a Computer based GPO then the printers will map at startup ( under the SYSTEM account and users may not be able to delete or rename them). If you deploy printers based on a User GPO then the printers will map at logon (under the user's credentials, thus allowing them to rename and or delete them).

This can be important because in environments where you have multiple users using the same workstation (like hospitals with multiple shifts). It might be a good idea to apply at the User level.

PushPrinterConnections

When Printer Deployment was first introduced in Win2003 R2, you had to run the "pushprinterconnections.exe" as a startup or logon script. This is still required for XP clients (Even if you're running newer Server OS like 2012).

In later versions (Vista and above) you don't need the pushprinterconnections.exe script.

PushPrinterConnections.exe Bug

There is a bug with early versions of PushPrinterConnections.exe where if a printer is removed from deployment (and deleted from the workstation) upon reboot the old printers are re-mapped. This is fixed in the following Hotfox KB973878 I had a hell of a time trying to get pushprinterconnections.exe out of that hotfix. I extracted it, then opened the .msu file with 7-Zip, but was unable to find the executable. So long story short, I had to install a temporary 2008 32 bit in a VM and apply the hotfix, then copy the file (located at %windir%\system32\pushprinterconnections.exe). To save myself from having to go through that hassle in the future I'm making the file available here: PushPrinterConnections_KB973878_x86.zip