Printer Installation Problem

jamieh

Hey all,

I've just set up 2 network printers.

I added them onto a few machines just to test.

I was logged on as the administrator and they worked perfectly.

When I logged on as another user the printers that I installed as the administrator had vanished.

It seems that the printers are set up per user account. I have about 200 users so setting up printers for each individual user is not an option!!

Is there a way of installing a printer on a machine that everyone has access to when they log onto the machine??

irlrobins

You have a shared workstations in a lab or library and you want all users of the workstation to have access to the same networked printer. Opps! You find that network printers definitions are stored in the user profiles. How do you install a network printer only once for all users of the NT workstation? You can't unless you cheat. The trick to the solution is that local printers are available to all users who login to the workstation. So How do you install a neetworked printer as a local printer?

* From Add Printer Wizard, Add Printer
* Select My Computer
* Click Next
* Click Add Port
* Select Local Port
* Click New Port
* Enter the Printer Share information \\ServerName\PrintSharename
* Click OK
* Click Close
* Click Next
* Select Printer Type
* Click Next
* Select set as Default
* Click Next
* Leave printer selected as NOT SHARED and click Next
* Click Finish

This will point the "Local Port" to the networked Printer and all users that log into the workstation will have access to the printer because all "Local" printers are setup for All Users configuration.

(Taken from here)

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Leave a note on the monitor with instructions to add both printers to the computer

eg.

1. Open Start Menu
2. Click "Run"
3. Type "\\server\printer1" into the box and press ok
4. Exit the window that opens
5. repeat with \\server\printer2

Tell each user to access the printers via their urls when they log on to the computer. This way each user installs their own printers as they need to.

petes

jamieh wrote:

It seems that the printers are set up per user account. I have about 200 users so setting up printers for each individual user is not an option!!

Is there a way of installing a printer on a machine that everyone has access to when they log onto the machine??

You could use a batch file for this.

Open notepad.

Type this in at the start:

START \\SERVER\PRINTER1
START \\SERVER\PRINTER2

Save the file as .bat.

Put this file on the sever and add a line to the users login script to point to it.

jamieh

Hey all,

I just had a brainwave.....is there anyway of running a local logon script in win xp regardless of who the user is??

I could run a logon script such as //server/printer1 whenever a user logs on to a machine.

I don't want to use a logon script for each user because there is 3 different labs with different printers in each lab. That's why I need a logon script for each computer as opposed to each user.

Static M.e.

Couldnt you run it as part of a local machine secuity policy...

Havent done myself but thats what I would look it.

Are you in a domain or workgroup?

ScumLord

Can you not set the printers as default for a user group? If your in a domain I'm preaty sure you can, you can do everything else to the computers in the domain.