Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations derfloh on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Default printer setup

Status
Not open for further replies.

jamccor

MIS
Joined
Apr 4, 2003
Messages
117
Location
US
I have a question.I have a lab where I work with xp pro client machines.I m trying to setup a default printer for every user on our domain.No matter how I set the default..whether locally under administrator or as a member of our domain,the default printer will change for every user who logs on.Why is this?
 
Is the issue that the printer is not installing for all the users? Or is it that it is just not the default?

If it is not installing for all users then it is most likly because you are installing it as a network printer. XP will only save network printers for the currently logged in user. So to get around this you can do a couple things. One way is you install the printer as a local printer printing to a tcp/ip port. This will show under any user logging into the pc.

Another option that would install for all users and/or set the default printer would be to make a printer script that runs on login.
 
Thats exactly what Im doing...installing it as a local printer printing to a tcp/ip port.The only problem with this is my systems administrator says that it will not spool correctly in a large lab when alot of simultaneous printing is going on.He would rather have it print from our server..\\xxx\mc_hp4100...like that. And thats the issue at hand.How to implement it.I dont see any settings in gpedit.msc.I havent spent much time in the registry though....
 
If you want to implament a network shared printer you will need to make a logon printer script. You can either apply it via the local GPO (but you would have to go to each pc) or put the computers in a group and apply it via a active directory domain GPO.

Basicly you open a txt doc and use the following commands


Set WshNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")

WshNetwork.AddwindowsPrinterConnection "\\Server\printer" ("\\server\printer" is the UNC to the printer)

WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\Server\printer"

then rename the txt to a vbs file (visual basic script) then apply it to run this script on login.

It has been awhile but I belave those are all the comands you need.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top