VMware Horizon Community
benji1234
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Default Printers Resetting

I am seeing an issue with user's network printers resetting to the default adobePDF or Onenote printer after logoff? The mapped network printers still show up but user's chosen default printer resets every time they login anyone seeing this issue before? We are running horizon 7.3.1 instant clones with UEM 9.2.1,  and Windows 10 1607.

Thanks in advance.

16 Replies
Pim_van_de_Vis

I have seen this, could be caused by Horizon Printer redirection (ThinPrint) or by AppVolumes.

Have a look at these KB's

https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2145750

https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2145750

https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2151396

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chulerico
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Are printers being configured with Direct Flex or at login, this is what works in my environment, default printer works every time, else wrong printer gets selected or no default printer gets set which is worse as some programs won't print at all.

(view 7.2 uem 9.2)

windows 7 - setup printers direct flex (direct flex also helps greatly if the default printer happens to be usb)

windows 10 1607 LTSB - setup printers at login

Sam

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Pim_van_de_Vis

chulerico This is probably because ThinPrint is overwriting the default printer with the redirected printers.

See the KB's I posted to fix this.

If you enable DirectFlex for printers, what executable do you use for DirectFlex?

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benji1234
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Sorry for late reply I will try to set the GPO and see how it goes. Thanks for your help.

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benji1234
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Yes I would be interested to know what executable you use for Directflex too.

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benji1234
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

One thing I forgot to mention is that a majority of users that are experiencing this issue use zero clients.

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Ray_handels
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I know that this thread is quite old but I would like to throw in some extra info into the equation Smiley Happy.

We are also seeing the same issue but the strange thing is that we don;t see this issue occuring all the time.

We are using View 7.2, Appvolumes 2.13.2.13 and UEM 9.2 and W10 1703 CB. Also every user has a writable volume. The strange thing is that users are able to install their own printer (which they do) and most of the time this printer just sticks with the user. But from time to time (could be once a week could be once every two weeks) the printer is no longer there even though it has been installed (and registered) within the writable volume. We are using the default UEM printer setting for setting the default printer.

We already have that reg setting for ThinPrint in our W10 environment Wimp777 but to no avail.

I am trying to get my hands on some logfiles when this happens to a user. The strange thing is that we cannot reproduce the issue on our own machines. I tried logging on and of about 20 times but it just sticks.

Any one has any idea where we should start looking??

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi Ray_handels,

the printer is no longer there

What exactly do you mean by this? The printer is no longer the default, or the printer is no longer listed under Devices and Printers?

We are using the default UEM printer setting for setting the default printer.

You mean the Printers –  Mapped network printers only Windows Common Setting?

Any one has any idea where we should start looking??

In the case where a printer "goes missing", does the printer-related profile archive that was imported into that session still have the correct settings for that printer? Or did that info already disappear in the previous session?

Might be hard to assess and also depends on the number of backups you use, but maybe it will lead to some insight?

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Ray_handels
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Hey UEMDev,

I should be a bit more specific Smiley Happy Smiley Happy.

Yes, the printer is no longer there in Devices and Printers. We already added the exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\DeviceContainers into the snapvol.cfg of the writable to get network printers within Devices and Printers.

Strange thing is that a user is able to install a network printer manually but after a few logons and logoffs it just seems to disappear and they need to reinstall it. AFAIK there is no line in when this happens although that's what the customer states.

Yes that's the one, here's the config for W10 only. We are NOT using it for W7 now.

#

# 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

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\LegacyDefaultPrinterMode

That is a very good idea to check. I will try and get my hands on log files and will check to see what the archives state. We have 3 backups so I should be good to go there and check it.

I also found this setting (which was posted by Pim) but we are using the DisableSettingOFDefPrinter=1 already and I thought that this is the correct key for that.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ThinPrint\TPAutoConnectUserDrivenDefaultPrinter=1 DWORD

Strange thing is that we also see users having an issue with the default printer being reset but they don't install printers themselves. These are managed printers installed using powershell (yes we would like to use UEM but still need to upgrade to 9.3 for the Appvolumes change Smiley Happy)

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Ray_handels
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Okay so were a bit lucky (or not). The user just called us with a smoking gun.

She logged in and had no printer installed so it seems as if the writable did not install it.

When we looked at the reg key for the printer settings we saw that in the current (and all archives) the correct printer was set as the default even though the printer wan;t there in the first place. It seems as if UEM is doing it's job.

Only thing I can think of now is timing issues.

Appvolumes does a restart after appstacks are attached. It could well be that the spooler is being restarted the moment UEM is trying to set the default printer.

Is there anything that we can check to see if this is the case??

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Wimp777
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Replying to my old post. That registry edit for Thinprint never worked for me. My only way around having Thinprint not interfering with my user's printers was to set the service to manual, and only start when users need it. I set everything in my GPO for the service state, and have a shortcut from UEM to run a .bat to start the service if a user is remote and wants to use their local printer. The attached file is the .inf file I loaded into my GPO to set the service state.

I don't have the experience of all my users having writable drives. I only have a handful out in my environment, however using the UEM predefined setting for printers solves my problems and I haven't had any problems with any of my instant clones across all my pools.

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hmm... I can imagine that Windows will ignore/reset a default printer set by UEM if that printer does not exist yet... Still, that would only result in that printer no longer being the default – it wouldn't make that printer invisible...

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Ray_handels
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

That's what I thought as well. Thing is that we are seeing 2 issues which, for as far as I can see, are connected with each other.

1 is default printers being reset to the locally installed PDF printer (which is default Windows behavior if no network printers are available) and the other one is that user installed printers are not being maintained all of the time.

We did a test with just UEM and then the printer is still available and default printers setting is still available.. So everything is pointing towards Appvolumes right now.. I will raise a ticket for it and see where we can go with that.

AoSIt
Contributor
Contributor

For the thinprint we use a "turn thinprint off" bat in connection with a UEM - Logon Task that checks (condition) whether the Endponit Name contains "our typical Zero client name" or "our typical laptop name" or The names of all those machines that we dont want thinprint to run.

sc stop "TPAutoConnSvc"

sc config "TPAutoConnSvc" start= disabled

So far this works pretty well.

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sergiordan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi Raymond,

I have a customer with the same symptoms.

Were you able to resolve the issue of user installed printer with Writable Volume?

Thanks in advance

Sergio

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Ray_handels
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Yes we were.

Follow these steps.

1. In prestartup.bat, append the line

sc stop spooler >nul 2>&1

2. Create startup_postsvc.bat with one line

sc start spooler >nul 2>&1

If startup_postsvc.bat already exists, append the line.

3. In snapvol.cfg, add the DeviceContainers exclusion,

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\control\DeviceContainers

This last line makes sure you can actually see the printers in devices and printers and not only in the word application.

I would highly suggest to use UEM to create the printers though because this is Appvolumes aware.

Do keep in mind that when appstacks are being attached it will still restart the spooler service.

And just as a good testing point, what happens if you use a UIA only writable, do you see the same thing happening then?