Location Based Printing

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:24:05 GMT

A great enhancement in VMware View 4.5 is the Location based Printing

feature. With Location based Printing you can always print on a network

printer, which is located nearest to you. The feature can be enabled

via a Microsoft Windows Group Policy option and is computer specific.

The functionality is relatively easy. There is a translation table which

contains rules e.g. Map printer NP54621 if the client’s IP address is

in the range 192.168.178.10-192.168.178.40. If the user logs on from a

client device which is in the given IP address range, the network

printer will automatically be mapped into the virtual desktop session.

This is great for people who often change their workplace as seen in the

healthcare or financial areas but there are a lot more good use cases

for that.

The rules can be based on:

IP addresses
MAC addresses
Usernames
User groups
Client hostname

After applying the rules through the Group Policy Object, the

information about printers and rules cab be found in the virtual

desktops registry at key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\ThinPrint\tpautoconnect.

The Group Policy for the Location based Printing feature is called

AutoConnect Location based Printing for VMware View. Before you can see

the policy template in the Group Policy Editor, you’ve to register a

special DLL file which you’ll find on the View Connection Server at

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\Extras\GroupPolicyFiles\ThinPrint. There are two subfolders, one of 32-Bit, the other for 64-Bit systems. The DLL name is TPVMGPoAmap.dll. Just copy the DLL to your administrator workstation and register it with command: regsvr32 "C:\folder\TPVMGPoACmap.dll"

After a successful import you’ll see the new Group Policy in the Group Policy Editor.

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With the new feature you get an editor with which you can add/edit and delete the rules.

[http://www.thatsmyview.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/image3.png]

In this editor you can add each entry manually or use an CSV file to

do a mass import of rules. You’ll see the following fields in the table:

Default, IP Range, Client Name, MAC address, User/Group, Printer Name,

Printer Driver and IP Port / Thin Print Port. Most of the parameters are

self explaining but it is important, that the printer driver is exactly

matching the name of the driver on the virtual desktop, also the

printer name. When you add a IP port for the network printer, don’t

forget to add the prefix IP_ e.g. IP_192.168.178.100.

I really like the Location based Printing feature. When I was an

administrator for Terminal Servers in a bank years ago we were looking

for exactly that functionality. At this time we had to build our own

solution based on VB scripts and a MS Access database which contained

the rules. That was a headache!

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Location Based Printing