AppVolume with a printer - cannot keep default one

[MiloNemilo]

Hi,

we are using AppVolumes for network printers. When created, we assign AppVol to specific users. It works fine, printing is working too. But default printer selection is not kept after restart.

We think, that it is due to later AppVol attaching. The HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows:Device is set correctly, but during logging-in, Windows somehow detects that such printer does not exist (yet) and rewrites registry by default one.

We are using Windows 8.1.

Thanks for any advice, regards, Milo

[Ray_handels]

We had the exact same issue but it had nothing to do with appvolumes in our case.

VMware uses ThinPrint to create printer drive mappings, you could try and add the following reg key.

And for as far as my knowledge goes, writable volume is attached before windows starts it's logon process.

HKLM\Software\ThinPrint\TPAutoConnect\DisableSettingOfDefPrinter=1 (DWORD)

[FROGGY_VMware]

As a side note if you also have User Environment Manager in your environment, it can save a lot of grief around printers. One great ability is to capture a user defined default printer and have that setting persist. Besides App Volumes, I've used this with customers to overcome some ThinPrint limitations moving between zero clients and Windows Horizon clients.

To capture user defined printers you can utilize the windows common settings:

In Personalization->Windows Settings select Create Config File

·       Use a Windows Common Setting

·       Printers - Mapped Network printers only

·       Give it a name and description

This will capture the following:

#

# Expanded settings for Windows Common Setting 'Printers':

#

[IncludeRegistryTrees]

HKCU\Printers

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Devices

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PrinterPorts

[IncludeIndividualRegistryValues]

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\Device

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\UserSelectedDefault