I'd really appreciate some help here. Network printing has always annoyed me. Here's the situation:

I'm dealing with a computer lab. The users of this lab have logins and there's a print server that handles the active directory stuff. That server also tracks the number of pages printed by those users.

The computer lab has one printer, and that's the one all the students print to. My basic question is: how do I make this printer show up on the computers no matter who is logged on?

In my experience (and in this case), an installed network printer only shows up for the current user and no others, and I've never known a way around that. Is it possible?

That's funny, In my experience, I've found it to be just the opposite: When you install a printer in Windows, it's available to all users of that machine.

The opposite situation, the one you describe, doesn't seem like the logical way to design an operating system, for precisely the reason you state. I'm wondering if there's something about the way the lab is set up, something nonstandard, that's causing your problem?

I've found that physically connected printers show up for all users, but networked ones don't. That's been the case at the last couple places I worked at as well.

Hm. It might be a permissions thing, where you specifically have to set it to "all users" after you install it.

I'm assuming Windows.

You have to install it for the "Default User".

Here are instructions for XP.

Create a bogus user. Log in as that user. Create the printers for that user. Log out. Log in as an administrator. Change your folder options to show hidden files and folders and not to hide protected OS files. Bring up the "System" control panel. Select the Advanced tab and click the User Profiles settings button. Select the bogus user and click "Copy To". Under "Copy Profile To" enter or browse to "c:\Documents and Settings\Default User". Click OK and back out of the control panel. Reset the folder options if you want. You probably want to delete the bogus user and his profile (same control panel page to delete profiles).

Now users that don't already have a profile on the computer will get the Default User profile when they log in for the first time. Existing users can have their profiles deleted and recreated when they log in next. Or you can just fix them manually.

You can set other default stuff this way, too.

Pain in the ass, huh?

In the old days, I'd map the printer in a login script. Not sure how that works in Active Directory. As you can see...I'm way behind the times on my server admin knowledge.

I thought about that "Default User" solution, and that, agreed, seems like way too much work. I'm seeing stuff on the web about running login scripts that call out to printui.dll, and that also seems like way too much work. There's gotta be a simpler way!

Is there a way to do it with group policy?

Maybe. That's the only reliable way I found. (I've always had bad luck with policies, but, despite having to deal with it, I don't consider myself a Windows admin, either.)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307016

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/252388

?

That's just awful. Ick.

Ugh. Thanks for that, and I think that's going to be the way I have to go about it. Unfortunately this has to be done for 12 machines, so it's going to take a while. But hey, they're paying me by the hour!

ps-yes, this is for Windows, and the lab is split between XP and Vista machines. Hopefully the process is similar, but I'd bet it isn't...

If you've got a domain going, why aren't you mapping the printer with a login script? AFAIK that's the standard way to do it. It Works Just Fine here at work. I can find the login script for you if you'd like, but it's essentially "net use \\pathto\printer".

(I thought that's what one of those MSKB articles I linked above says to do, but now I see it's more complicated than that). I think it sucks that you'd have to do that at all, but whatever. By the way, I think that the NET USE command is only part of the equation, that allows you to use the printer but doesn't necessarily install the driver and set it to be the default printer. That's what the printUI.dll command is for. (if I'm understanding correctly.)

That would be fine with me. I think it wasn't done that way because whoever set up this network only wanted that printer installed for users when they logged onto those specific computers. That would make sense, but they only use their logins to log into those computers anyway, so it won't make a lot of difference.

I'm not familiar with login scripts, though. I'd appreciate more information. And is Tony correct, will that script not actually install the printer driver?

The problem is that a login script is associated with a user, not a computer. Given that you're dealing with printers, it makes more sense to have them be specific to computers, since, I'm sure, you're interested in proximity.

...as are printers, which is the original problem. Windows really needs a "Make this printer available to all users of this computer" checkbox. The problem with that is that the remote printer is secured by user credentials, not computer credentials, meaning that you could potentially have a default printer that you don't have permission to print to. Confusing.

There's probably a sensible solution. I wonder if anything in Windows 7 has changed this? I've not had a chance to play with it yet...

Then, instead of a logon script, make it a batch file. Place the batch file in the following folder:

C:\documents and settings\All users\start menu\programs\startup

Then the batch file will run for every single user that logs onto that particular machine.

If you want a printer to appear for all users just install it as a local printer. Not ideal but it works. BTW Vista breaks login scripts that setup network printers, you have to use the Group Policy Network Printers object for Vista which means you have to upgrade your Domain Schema to support this.

Well, printers are associated with user profiles, which is slightly different than being associated with a user. Since established users logging into a particular computer for the first time get that computer's default user profile, that's closer to being associated with a computer than a user.

Of course, this is ignoring roaming user profiles. I don't honestly know if that's still supported.

Would this help any?

On all the machines at work, the admins have made sure there is a link to the "Find Printers" dialog in the start menu. From there, users are on their own in deciding which printer(s) to use. Literally dozens spread over several buildings.

I'd be willing to try this too. It sounds like a good solution to me that allows me to choose which computers get the printer.

I don't really care what method I use, I'm just hoping for one that works. Reading back on this thread, I see a lot of good ideas, but is there a consensus on what would be the best way to accomplish it?

This isn't a very acceptable option to the people I'm doing the work for. At the moment there's instructions littered around the room on how to install the printer, and this would just be making that digital. They really want it so that the students don't have to think about it.

Both these methods work (they're the same approach). I started on two computers with this method, and curiously when I did a test logon with one of the student accounts, I started getting script errors. This indicated to me that there actually was a script set up to install the printers.

So I found the script, and edited it to change it to the new printer name. It worked!!

But I have urgent help needed (I'm at the place right now and I need to fix this today). The script works on all the XP machines in this lab, but unfortunately it does not work on the newer Vista machines (I get the same script errors as before, claiming the printer doesn't exist). Research didn't come up with much, but I've concluded something: it has nothing to do with Vista and everything to do with when these newer, faster machines are running the scripts. The script fails at logon (before the desktop even shows), but if I run the same script once everything has loaded, the printer installs perfectly.

How do I fix this? Is there a way to delay the script?

I found a site where it explains how you can get a script to sleep for X seconds. Is that something you can use?

Stig

At my office we use printers connected by ip address, so no need to log into the other winders machines. What I dislike is that the XP and Vista machines will search other 'puters on the network and install any printers found on other machines automatically. So, each machine will have it's own connection to the tcp/ip printer, and connections to that same printer on every other computer also set up to use it. They also like to change the the default printer to use one of these other connections, and for some reason they seem to favor the ones on my 'puter. I haven't yet found a way to turn this annoying behaviour off...

is there anyway to network a printer using my existing wireless router? (it doesn't have any USB ports, so I assume not)

And from that statement, I assume it's a USB-only printer and does not already have a network port? (Because if it did you would have already plugged it in, gotten it to work, and not be asking these questions.) Yes, you have options.

Here are your options, in the order of easiest/most succesful, to hardest/least successful.

1. Simply buy another printer with the networking feature or with the wireless networking feature built-in. I did that recently, and it was dirt-cheap. I got a "Brother" brand laser printer which has a 100 percent uptime, stays on the network, and goes into silent powersave sleep mode when it's not printing anything. I actually keep the printer in my recording studio, and it doesn't make a sound until I ask it to print something on the network. Super easy to set up, very cheap, works like a charm.

2. If your printer has an add-on option for networking, such as a card that plugs into the printer (many printers have this option), definitely buy that option. It might cost nearly as much as (1) above, but it will be easy to set up.

3. There are little boxes you can buy at office supply stores that have a USB port on one side and a LAN port on the other side. You can also buy full network hubs/routers that have an extra USB port for adding a printer. All these products are designed to solve the very problem that you're describing: They allow you to network a USB-only printer. However, I have used one before and it was TERRIBLE. It was one of the cheap brands like Netgear or D-link. I could get it working (after much fuss) and it would work for a while, but if the upstream network router got rebooted (after a power outage for example), the printer box would stop talking to the router and I would have to reboot it by hand. When the time came to actually print something across the network, i.e., when I needed it, it was never functioning.

Now, number (3) above might be the right solution for you (if they've improved the technology or if you happen to find a good one), I'm just warning you that there's a good chance you might have my negative experience if you try the same route.

Or, if you're wanting to network the printer so that you can access it from multiple computers, just attach it to one, share the printer from that computer, and add it on the other. It's pretty straightforward.

That said, I've had good luck with Axis print servers in the past.

Those print servers are awful. Ugh. Also, we don't know what kind of printer he has. If it's a multi-funtion, there are much fewer print servers that will work with them.

I think option #1 is the way to go. Currently, my method of printer sharing is by plugging my standard USB laser printer into my Airport Extreme and putting Bonjour on all the Windows computers in the house. It doesn't work great, but hey, printers are annoying.

*facepalm*

Of course. Yeah, that should have been option zero on my list above. I have tunnel vision because I don't like having a printer depend on a computer for its uptime, so I never use that solution if I can help it.

That's good to know. So none of the problems I was describing with the netgear/d-link boxes, then.