Default printer not remembered (zero clients, windows 7, linked clones, persona management)

[iscsitarget]

Everytime when a user logs on, the default printer is reverted back to the pdfcreator. the user has to manually set the default printer at logon.

We are using linked clones + persona management, users have to setup printers by them selves by navigating to: \\printserver\ and connect to the printers. They only have to do this once, the printers are remembered, only the default printer is reverted back.

On setting the default printer, on the guest, registry hive:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows

Entry: Device

is set to the default printer. If i log off the client, wait for his persona to sync completly, and after that load the hive onto another machine, the registry entry is set to what it should be (the printer which i've selected)

After loging on again, the registry entry is reverted back to the PDF Creator setting

We are using teradici zero clients.

Thanks

[CameronUBC]

We're having the same problem here. We are not using thin printing, running View 5.1 and Teradici P20 zero clients. If you are able to find a solution I would be greatly appreciative. I have filed a ticket with VMWare about this issue to see if they can help, and I will keep you posted if they do.

[chillware1]

I worked around this problem by creating a batch file that runs eveytime a user logs off that gets the users current default printer and saves it to a file.

attrib -h "%USERPROFILE%\MyDefaultPrinter.reg"
regedit.exe /e "%USERPROFILE%\MyDefaultPrinter.reg" "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows"
attrib +h "%USERPROFILE%\MyDefaultPrinter.reg"

Then I created another batch file that runs everytime the user logs in that waits a few mins then reads the above file and resets the default printer again.

@echo off

REM Wait 5 mins before we try to set default printer, this will allow windows to install drivers after vmware view desktop recompose
PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 300000 >NUL

regedit.exe /s "%USERPROFILE%\MyDefaultPrinter.reg"

Probably not the best way to accomplish this, but it works. I've been running this way for almost a year no and can recompose w/o issues. Just something I cooked up while trying to figure this out..

[CameronUBC]

Okay VMWare got back to me with this advice:

Go to Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> Remote Desktop Session Host -> Printer Redirection

The setting is called "Do not set default client printer to be default printer in a session".  Change this to Enabled and it will no longer take the default printer assigned to the local workstation.

I know it seems like that would be for RDP, but Windows will sort of tret PCoIP sessions as a terminal services connection.

So far it looks like this fix is not working unfortunately. I will do some user testing and maybe users have more success than I do, or if you try it maybe you'll have more success. This would seem to indicate that the printer is getting messed up when people log in using a soft client and it maps a local printer as default. This is certainly a point at which the default printer could be getting wiped.

Regards

Cameron

[iscsitarget]

I found the sollution eventually.

Its realated to the "network location awareness" service

2 options:

[s]1. (for every user) disable the "Network Location Awareness" Service in the services console and include it in your gold image

(i believe its related to: every guest generates there own network ID, if the ID is different NLA sets the default printer to the system default (which in my case is the PDF creator)[/s] (sorry guys, this was NOT the sollution)

2. If you do not want to disable the NLA service,  Do it on a per-user base in the current user registry (see below)

Create a Key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers ... named: Defaults

Then create an entry (string value): Disabled and set it to: 1

--- printer_per_user.reg ----

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Defaults]
"Disabled"="1"

----------------

Good luck!

[CameronUBC]

I'm told by a VMWare engineer that this is an issue with persona management and pre-5.1.1 View. It should be fixed with 5.1.2, even though it's not in the release notes. Since it's not in the release notes I'm a bit sceptical. However, I experience this issue still on our View deployment and we're not currently using persona management. We've just installed 5.1.2 this morning due to the security advisory that was sent out, however the agent hasn't been updated yet to test it it's fixed for non-persona management pools.

[jonathanjabez]

This issue occurs because the default printer that is configured in the Persona Management profile is getting overwritten.

Default printer settings do not persist through View sessions when Persona Management is enabled:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=203972...

Refer to the below given Administration guide for the detailed steps on "Configuring Location Based Printing"