Printing on a Citrix Farm

[coposg]

Hi all,

We have a Citrix METAFARM setup here, with MetaFrame XPe Feature Release 2, Service Pack 2 on Windows 2000 servers with SP2. We have a domain controller and 7 servers setup as part of the farm.
We aren't using the Citrix Management Console for printing, rather we install the printers locally on each server, and the users default printer is set via a registry setting file on the network, and they can change this printer from a published application based on Visual Basic.
My question is, does anyone know of a way to copy the locally installed printers from one server to another, either via a registry key or otherwise, so we just install the printer on one server, and replicate the changes across.
I realise this isn't the way Citrix printing was designed, but any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks
Steven Paice

 

[xs4citrix]

In theory i would say:

- on the host server, stop the print spooler service
- from the host server, copy the folder "%SystemRoot%\System32\spool" to a backup place.
- from the host server export the following regkey's:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-2
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3
- on the host server start the print spooler again.
- on th etarget server, stop the print spooler
- overwrite the spool directory with the files from the backup
- import the regkey's
- start the print spooler.

http://www.printingsupport.com

Free citrixprinting support

 

[coposg]

Thanks xs4citrix,

The copying of the printers works perfectly, thanks for the advice, I should have mentioned we have a Novell 5.1 network, using ZENWorks profiles, and the premissions haven't copied over from server to server, this is something I'll need to look further into, any more suggestions or ideas on how to copy permissions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Steven P