Problem with WYSE P20 and ThinPrint

[JamesConaway]

View 4.5

vSphere 4.1

Windows XP SP3

Wyse P20 v3.2.1

Logged in user has local administrator rights.

Connection using view with PCoIP

TPAutoconnect 7.17.519.5

The overall problem is printers are not being mapped through the ThinPrint GPO. The GPO is applying printers based on the MAC of the P20.

The printing works with PC devices using the view client. Printers map and I do not get the tpautoconnect error.

Verified the Registry entries are on the workstation.

Verified the XP workstation and resolve P20 Mac address using vb script that queries and returns p20 data.

When we try to run tpautoconnect -d we get a pop up box with the following error:

Can't get client name (-1).

Can't find documentation anywhere on this nor is VMware support helping. We have an open ticket.

[mittim12]

Is this the OEM version of thinprint within View? If so I don't think your going to have any luck getting it to work with the P20. The oem thinprint requires the client side piece for the machine connecting to the VDI machine. The P20 can't have a client side piece because it's a Zero client.

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[JamesConaway]

This is a all VMware view/vsphere application installs. Nothing came from ThinPrint AG.

So you are telling me that View 4.5 Location based printing is useless with Zero clients?

I find that hard to believe because the VMware View support engineers are aware of my problem and know the software/hardware involved and would be very disappointed if they didn't understand the basics of Thinprint. Spending all this time troubleshooting a problem that is caused by lack of design functionality.

Or that VMware would buy a product that would not function on a commonly used hardware platform to run the client.

Maybe you are wrong or maybe you are right and the Location based printing functionality for P20's is a future planned feature.

Can anyone confirm this?

[mittim12 · Accepted solution]

I can't speak for the quality of the support VMware has given you. I know I have had some great support and some bad support. I can however say that thinprint requires a client side component that can't be installed on a zero client. You can look over the zero client optimization guide from VMware for validation. On page 5 you can find the statement below.

• Since zero clients do not support ThinPrint, ThinPrint can be uninstalled for the virtual desktop using the View

Agent installer in order to reduce CPU cycles.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-View-PCoIP-Zero-Client-Optimization-Guide-TN-EN.pdf

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[mittim12]

I wanted to add one more thing. I'm not overly familiar with location based printing as it's not a great fit for our environment. If support does give you a way to make it work will you please post the resolution here. Good luck.

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[JamesConaway]

I appreciate the help, your last post cleared it for me. Location based printing is a great solution for this enviornment, I am going to have an interesting conversation with VMware support.

If an alternative is found, I will post here.

Thanks.

[JamesConaway]

Here is the latest from ThinPrint & VMware support.

ThinPrint was not supported with Zero clients with 4.0, but is supported with 4.5. Getting thinprint to work with 4.5 & and all the Zero client models is still a problem and is being worked on by VMware engineering.

Apparently we are bleeding edge....

[mittim12]

That's great news that it's supported but kind of supported that I have never seen a supported feature actually work.  Thanks for keeping me updated and please continue as it's something I would like to utilize in my enviornment as well. 

[gunnarb]

I'll get you your answers.  I work for Teradici as of yesterday so I have the inside goods. 

That being said, my understanding of this is that ThinPrint is not supported as an Agent, however Location Based printing is supported.  The Zero client will send the bits needed to enable this feature.  If you want to use ThinPrint to "offload" the print job, this is not supported, but if you are using it for the location aware stuff this is doable.  More information shortly.

Also if you have an environment you'd like to test this on let me know, I'd like to see if I can help you get this working.

-Gunnar Berger

[gunnarb]

For those of you interested check this out:

Open up regedit and go to HKLM\Current User\Volatile Environment

There is all the information we need to do location based printing.  Now I'm going to find out tomorrow how to use that information to make it work, more to come... I'll probably do a blog on it.

-Gunnar

[mittim12]

Thanks Gunnar.  Always nice to have someone on the inside

[JamesConaway]

Thank you for your help. Location based printing is what we are trying to accomplish. The print jobs will be spooled on the VM directly to the printers.

[529122530]

wyse is for charge

[gunnarb]

I started a new thread on this subject, because this is not just a Wyse P20 issue, its a Zero Client issue.  See thread here:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/297070

I expect to have an answer on January 4th.  As I have a meeting scheduled with ThinPrint and VMWare.

-Gunnar

[gunnarb]

As promised today is the 4th and I need something from anyone that has it.

Do any of you have thinprint setup and working on non-zero clients?  If so can you send me a screen shot of the following regkeys (you can black out anything that is considered sensitive.  I don't need your IPs, I just need the key names).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\thinprint\tpautoconnect

Thanks!

-Gunnar

[gunnarb]

Okay I setup an internal environment to test all of this and I was able to find the solution:

See solution here:

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-14416

Looks like you marked this "answered" too early my friend.  This should work, please let me know if you have problems in your testing!

-Gunnar Berger

Teradici

[nonsparker]

I have followed this guide and was not able to get the printer to map. have you run into any other people that can't get this to work. I am using ClearCube I9422 ZC and view 4.6

[gunnarb]

See if this helps, this should show you what is happening when the tp service is trying to create the printer.

Troubleshooting

Open a command prompt and go to this directory: C:\Program Files\VMWare\VMWare Tools\

From within that directory run these commands:

tpautoconnect.exe –d all

• This will delete all printers created by ThinPrint
  

tpautoconnect.exe –v –i vmware –a COM1 –F 30

• This command is the same command that is run by the TP process, the only difference is that instead of running the process with the quiet flag (-q) we want to run it in verbose mode (-v).  This will help us see if there are any errors.
  

Common Errors

“Can’t get Client Name” – This error most likely means that the Group Policy is not taking affect.

“No suitable client protocol found.” – This error can be ignored, following this error you should see your printers map.

[nonsparker]

Attached is the output of the command with -v as an option.

Also attached is a screen shot of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\thinprint\tpautoconnect

[gunnarb]

That looks healthy to me, it looks like the user doesn't have any printers assigned to it.  Although I do find this line interesting:

No additional printer specified for '()'

I can't see your registry screen shot so that's not all that helpful.  I recommend changing you settings to *, *,*,* and just get the printer to map, once it maps then start fooling with your group permissions (ie, who gets what printer).  I think you are just fighting a permissions issue.  You followed my guide correctly, you do not get the standard error that is caused by Virtual Channels, now you are just fighting the setup of TP.

-Gunnar