View Desktop Printer is mapped (redirected) but not printing

[thodie]

Dear Community,

We have created an automatic pool with dedicated allocation / linked clone with a Windows 7 gold image.

So far everything is working fine....almost... USB redirection works and also both connection modes (PCoIP and RDP).

But one thing is really making us crazy at this point... We are not able to get an outcome of the virtual mapped (redirected) printer.

Within the Windows 7 gold image (which is very basic) we installed first the VMwar Tools (including virtual printing).

After this we installed the View Agent V5.2.0.897719 and then the Remote Experience Agent 1.0.317, of course with all the reboots needed between.

After that we installed the latest Microsoft Patches and made a Domain Join...  created then a snapshot of the gold image VM and gave it to the pool.

After enabling the pool, the desktops are available as expected. The connection with the View Client works fine for both, PCoIP and RDP.

If we check the printers on the virtual desktop by connecting via PCoIP no printers are shown.

If we check the printers on the virtual desktop by connecting via RDP the printer available on the physical client (a network attached HP PhotoSmart C309) is shown correctly on the virtual desktop.

We are able to see and configure the settings of the mapped printer and everything looks fine.

If we try to print anything from the virtual desktop (e.g. from notepad) the printer queue of the virtual desktop's mapped printer shows the document printing and gets empty very fast.

But on the client's printer nothing comes out. Also on the clients printer queue the document is not beeing received.

If we make the test by selecting print preview on the virtual desktop, then the View client ThinPrint Preview window is popping up, showing the correct print preview of the document.

If use the print button on the preview window, the document gets into the local (client's) printer queue and getting out from the queue very fast again.

But still no outcome on the printer itself...

Of course the two services "TP AutoConnect Service " and "TP VC Gateway Service" are running on the virtual desktop.

And within the GPO we allowed everything print related.

We really don't know anymore where to further troubleshoot, as everythin else is working like a charm... except printing (but the printer attached over network to the physical client is shown correctly on the virtual desktop, it's settings are also available and even the print preview window on the client starts...  just no outcome on the printer...

Thanks for any hints or input...

regards,

thodie

[mittim12]

Are you able to print to the printer from the client machine without any issues?    Are you able to add the network manually in the VDI machine and print without any issues?      Here is a KB that will assist in setting up ThinPrint logging which may help to figure out where the problem is.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2004001

[thodie]

Yes, that's the most interesting thing. On the physical client itself (from where i connect to the virtual desktop using the view client) the same printer works without any issues.

I haven't tried yet so far to add the network manualy on the virtual desktop as it get's its IP by a DHCP server responsible for the virtuel desktop IP range. (which is of course completely different than the one i am using at home on my physical machine.

i will try to setup the IP manually on the virtual desktop, but cannot really image it would makes a difference...

Thanks for the KB, i will try to go through as my next step...

The very interesting thing is, if i send a document to the mapped (redirected) printer on the virtual desktop and if i watch the both printer queues (virtual desktop and physical desktop), i am able to see the document gets first into the virtual desktops printer queue, and as is gets out there, it gets into the local (physical) printer queue...

meaning, the data is processed as expected and it must be somehow a local problem on the physical machine...

Of course i have already tried to use several different physical machines with different network and USB attached printers... but its everywhere the same issue...

The document (print) is getting lost somewhere between the local (physical printer queue) and the local attached printer...

Before i had the ThinPrint Client installed on my local physical machine, because i use it with some Terminal Servers and TP Server Engine... First i thought maybe that could be the issue... but also after removing the ThinPrint Client and even on a fresh installes client device with O.S. / printer / and view client only it's still the same issue...

[thodie]

another intersting fact.

when i tried to go through the KB to enable ThinPrint logging I've seen something interesting.

On the virtual desktop all registry values for ThinPrint are existing, but on the client where I've installed the View Client (x64) there are no registry keys as described in the KB

It looks a bit like the View client software has not installed ThinPrint components on my client.

I''ve tried to uninstall the view client and reinstalled it again, but same issue.

Could it maybe a problem because i have also installed VMware Workstation on my client?

Is there a way to have the ThinPrint components only used by View Client available for installing them seperately?

Or what else could i try?

Could it maybe also an issue with View Client V5.3.x and V5.4.x?

[julienvarela]

Hi,

Normally , thinprint registry is created at the first connection using view client.

From the past i had the same issue with workstation and view client installed on the same machine.

If you plan to install View Client with Local Mode, verify that none of the following products are already installed: VMware View Client, VMware Player, VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, VMware Server

regards,

Julien

[MarAndreas]

thodie wrote:

On the virtual desktop all registry values for ThinPrint are existing, but on the client where I've installed the View Client (x64) there are no registry keys as described in the KB

Did you look in the Wow6432Node?