Location Based Printing, Network Printers and Zero Clients

[keviom]

Can anyone help with a small issue. I currently am setting up Linked Clone images in an enviroment that has multiple network printers (shared from a 2008 r2 print server). The clients are all EVGA Zero clients. Everytime I recompose the default printer resets itself back to the wrong printer. I thought of using Location Based Printing as mentioned in one of the many threads I have looked at, but can't get it to pick up the network printer. Is it possible to use LBP with network printers without having to load the printer driver locally in the master image first, as surely the network printer downloads the driver when the user connects to it. Our users have all sorts of label printers and MFPs etc that are constantly changing as they wear out.

My concern isthat everytime I add a new printer I'm going to have to go back to the master image, add the new driver locally in to it, then recompile the Linked Clones.

Each user has multiple printers installed from from the printserver, with the nearest one being their defalt. I don't want to have to add multiple local printers to get the drivers locally then remove them all again, and repeat everytime a new printer type comes along. The ideal would be add it as a network printer, use GPO deployed printers to get the printer to the user then use LBP to set the relevant network printer as the users default printer (based on a security group)

Is that possible? 

[nzorn]

We are using a free application called DEFSET that sets the users default printer:

http://ctrl-alt-del.com.au/files/DEFSET.txt

http://ctrl-alt-del.com.au/files/DEFSET.zip

[LarryBlanco2]

Why not use GPP for the entire printing infrastructure?

You can get GPP to do the exact same thing that LBP does using Item-level targeting.   See config below:

Item-level targeting: Registry MatchAttribute Value

bool AND

not 0

type MATCHVALUE

subtype SUBSTRING

hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER

key Volatile Environment

valueName ViewClient_IP_Address

valueType REG_SZ

valueData 192.168.100.

min 0.0.0.0

max 0.0.0.0

gte 1

lte 0

This specific printer is being added to all users who have a substring match of "192.168.100."    I'm just having GPP look at the reg key HKCU under volatile Environment and specific key ViewClient_IP_address.

U can get as detailed as u want.  Specific user, computer, subnet, IP address.    Sky's the limit with GPP's.

Larry B.

Added pic:

Message was edited by: Larry Blanco

[keviom]

Hi,

Thank you for this. I will certainly have a look at it. One concern from reading quickly throught the txt file is how it would work with linked clones being refreshed. Also part of the issue I have is I also have a few printers, such as the label printers that need to be available to certain sers and not others, but are not their default printers.

[keviom]

Hi, thanks for the answer. I am trying to avoid using GPP as mnuch as possible as GPP are temporary, not compulsory unlike standard Policies. Also this seems a fairly complicated way to do something that is almost there already with deployed printers and LBP.

After doing further research and lots of testing I found a couple of pointers which when combined seem top give me the right answer that works in my enviroment (although only time will tell how well it works).

The aolution I have found is to install and share the printers on the printserver, then set up and AD group for each printer I want as default. Deploy all the standard printers that everyone must have using deploy printer user GPO. Finally to set up LBP using \\domain\group in the user/group field put any name you like in the printer name field as it seems to user the share name, and then in the printer driver field put \\server\sharename.

Thisa allows me to set default printers and add extra printers to just some users.

The only confusing things I found was it ignoring the printer name I set in the policy, and that if the printer already exists on the VM through deployed printer it uses that one when setting default via LBP, i.e. it doesn't create a 2nd printer with a new name and make that the default.

I shall continue to do some testing and may yet revert back to some of the suggestions above, but for now it seems to work

[nzorn]

We use roaming profiles so we just place a small batch file in their startup folder that launches DEFSET when they login.  We are also running non-persistent linked clones.