Printing problems - compatable printers

[Guest JohnB]

I had posted something earlier on printing problems and realized that I'm

probably going about asking for help here in the wrong way.

 

I'll explain the situation first;

I am working a temporary assignment at a company that has about 30 to 40 TS

users. They each have their own printer. All clients are XP or Vista, most

are XP. The server is 2003 SP2 R2. One of my goals here is to help with

their printing problems.

 

All printers are inexpensive personal printers. Most are HP Laserjets;

1006, 1010, 1012, 1015, 1018, 1020, 1022 and 1055. With a few Oki, Brother

and HP inkjet printers mixed in. No business class network printers

(unfortunately). They are learning the hard way that it doesn't pay to "go

cheap", they have massive printing problems. 90% of all calls are for

printing problems from their RDP session.

 

I took a look at an HP document that lists which HP printers are supported

and which aren't.

 

As I said, the majority of their IT problems are printer/RDP related and,

with almost all of those the issue is; in their RDP session they loose their

local/default printer. They somehow have other printers in their RDP

session, other user's local printer, and so they invariably send output to

someone else's printer when this happens.

What I have found is, if they logout of their RDP session and log back in,

they get their printer back. Sometimes that *doesn't* work. And so I've

also found that if I stop and stop the server spooler while they're logged

out, they get their printer when they log back in.

 

I had read here suggestions to try a third-party printing solution. I have

a colleague that uses ThinPrint where she works. She did not set it up, it

was there when she started. And without me describing our issues first, she

said "one of the problems they have is, the printer disappears from the RDP

session". So I'm leery of suggesting to management this as a solution,

based on that.

 

One of the replies/suggestions I got from a previous post suggested using

the Fallback driver or use this page -

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=239088 - to edit the registry. I read a

couple articles on the web about the Fallback driver and didn't get a warm &

fuzzy feeling about that being a good solution to this issue. And the

Microsoft page referred to making changes to the registry on the 2003

server, something I would only do as a last resort.

 

From all the research I've done, everything points to this being an issue

with incompatible printers. Printers that aren't supported by TS. But, I

used the HP document and created a checklist of which HP printers that are

supported and which aren't (at this company). And what I have found is;

both supported and non-supported HP printers have the problem where they

*disappear* from the RDP session. The same problem that also happens with

ThinPrint.

 

So I am *hoping* to find someone that has been down this same road. And

that they have found a solution that works reliably and consistently.

 

TIA

[Guest moncho]

Re: Printing problems - compatable printers

 

JohnB wrote:

> I had posted something earlier on printing problems and realized that

> I'm probably going about asking for help here in the wrong way.

>

> I'll explain the situation first;

> I am working a temporary assignment at a company that has about 30 to 40

> TS users. They each have their own printer. All clients are XP or

> Vista, most are XP. The server is 2003 SP2 R2. One of my goals here is

> to help with their printing problems.

>

> All printers are inexpensive personal printers. Most are HP Laserjets;

> 1006, 1010, 1012, 1015, 1018, 1020, 1022 and 1055. With a few Oki,

> Brother and HP inkjet printers mixed in. No business class network

> printers (unfortunately). They are learning the hard way that it

> doesn't pay to "go cheap", they have massive printing problems. 90% of

> all calls are for printing problems from their RDP session.

>

> I took a look at an HP document that lists which HP printers are

> supported and which aren't.

>

> As I said, the majority of their IT problems are printer/RDP related

> and, with almost all of those the issue is; in their RDP session they

> loose their local/default printer. They somehow have other printers in

> their RDP session, other user's local printer, and so they invariably

> send output to someone else's printer when this happens.

> What I have found is, if they logout of their RDP session and log back

> in, they get their printer back. Sometimes that *doesn't* work. And so

> I've also found that if I stop and stop the server spooler while they're

> logged out, they get their printer when they log back in.

>

> I had read here suggestions to try a third-party printing solution. I

> have a colleague that uses ThinPrint where she works. She did not set

> it up, it was there when she started. And without me describing our

> issues first, she said "one of the problems they have is, the printer

> disappears from the RDP session". So I'm leery of suggesting to

> management this as a solution, based on that.

>

> One of the replies/suggestions I got from a previous post suggested

> using the Fallback driver or use this page -

> http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=239088 - to edit the registry. I

> read a couple articles on the web about the Fallback driver and didn't

> get a warm & fuzzy feeling about that being a good solution to this

> issue. And the Microsoft page referred to making changes to the

> registry on the 2003 server, something I would only do as a last resort.

>

> From all the research I've done, everything points to this being an

> issue with incompatible printers. Printers that aren't supported by

> TS. But, I used the HP document and created a checklist of which HP

> printers that are supported and which aren't (at this company). And

> what I have found is; both supported and non-supported HP printers have

> the problem where they *disappear* from the RDP session. The same

> problem that also happens with ThinPrint.

>

> So I am *hoping* to find someone that has been down this same road. And

> that they have found a solution that works reliably and consistently.

>

> TIA

 

JohnB,

 

Most of us have been in similar situations and now that we know you

already have 30-40 printers in place, you have a few different choices

to make.

 

As for TS-Compatible printers, other than the list Vera mentioned, I

do not know of another list. Either way, installing third-party

printer drivers on a TS has the possibility of making the print

spooler go nuts.

 

IMHO, If you stick with ANY printer that accepts PCL commands, you

should be fine because you can use the generic HP LaserJet PCL driver

in W2K/W2K3/W2K8 to print. Will this guarantee 100% compatibility,

no, but it will work 99.9% of the time without issues once setup.

Problems may crop up when dealing with multiple paper trays per

printer.

 

With your current crop of printers and situation, using ThinPrint may

be a better option. I know your co-worker has used it before and had

some issues, it may be best to investigate this option first. I do

not know about the disappearing printer issues with ThinPrint but

maybe their tech support can help with that. This solution SHOULD

(but may not) allow you to use your current printers, even

the LIDIL printers.

 

If money is not an issue, heck, outfit them with lowest cost

HP LaserJets that accept PCL commands and you should be good to

go. I just setup a Lanier Printer that is NOT in the current

MS Printer list but it accepts PCL commands so I just used the

HP LaserJet 4V printer driver and all is well. I setup a

similar printer 2 years ago and it has never had an issue.

 

If the employees are in the same office, see if you can get

management to purchase a couple workgroup printers to limit the

amount of printers needed.

 

It seems that you have to pick the lesser of a few evils or

convince management to start over and purchase new printers that

are on HP's list or some other list. Either way, it sounds

like you have some work ahead of you.

 

moncho

[Guest Vera Noest [MVP]]

Re: Printing problems - compatable printers

 

If you have just one single printer driver left on the TS which is

not compatible with TS, it can crash your spooler.

And that will cause *all* printers to disappear, also the ones

which *are* TS-compatible, Maybe that explains why you see that all

printers have problems?

_________________________________________________________

Vera Noest

MCSE, CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server

TS troubleshooting: http://ts.veranoest.net

___ please respond in newsgroup, NOT by private email ___

 

"JohnB" <jbrigan@yahoo.com> wrote on 09 jul 2008 in

microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services:

> I had posted something earlier on printing problems and realized

> that I'm probably going about asking for help here in the wrong

> way.

>

> I'll explain the situation first;

> I am working a temporary assignment at a company that has about

> 30 to 40 TS users. They each have their own printer. All

> clients are XP or Vista, most are XP. The server is 2003 SP2

> R2. One of my goals here is to help with their printing

> problems.

>

> All printers are inexpensive personal printers. Most are HP

> Laserjets; 1006, 1010, 1012, 1015, 1018, 1020, 1022 and 1055.

> With a few Oki, Brother and HP inkjet printers mixed in. No

> business class network printers (unfortunately). They are

> learning the hard way that it doesn't pay to "go cheap", they

> have massive printing problems. 90% of all calls are for

> printing problems from their RDP session.

>

> I took a look at an HP document that lists which HP printers are

> supported and which aren't.

>

> As I said, the majority of their IT problems are printer/RDP

> related and, with almost all of those the issue is; in their RDP

> session they loose their local/default printer. They somehow

> have other printers in their RDP session, other user's local

> printer, and so they invariably send output to someone else's

> printer when this happens. What I have found is, if they logout

> of their RDP session and log back in, they get their printer

> back. Sometimes that *doesn't* work. And so I've also found

> that if I stop and stop the server spooler while they're logged

> out, they get their printer when they log back in.

>

> I had read here suggestions to try a third-party printing

> solution. I have a colleague that uses ThinPrint where she

> works. She did not set it up, it was there when she started.

> And without me describing our issues first, she said "one of the

> problems they have is, the printer disappears from the RDP

> session". So I'm leery of suggesting to management this as a

> solution, based on that.

>

> One of the replies/suggestions I got from a previous post

> suggested using the Fallback driver or use this page -

> http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=239088 - to edit the

> registry. I read a couple articles on the web about the

> Fallback driver and didn't get a warm & fuzzy feeling about that

> being a good solution to this issue. And the Microsoft page

> referred to making changes to the registry on the 2003 server,

> something I would only do as a last resort.

>

> From all the research I've done, everything points to this being

> an issue with incompatible printers. Printers that aren't

> supported by TS. But, I used the HP document and created a

> checklist of which HP printers that are supported and which

> aren't (at this company). And what I have found is; both

> supported and non-supported HP printers have the problem where

> they *disappear* from the RDP session. The same problem that

> also happens with ThinPrint.

>

> So I am *hoping* to find someone that has been down this same

> road. And that they have found a solution that works reliably

> and consistently.

>

> TIA

[Guest JohnB]

Re: Printing problems - compatable printers

 

Thank you for all the information.

 

Since we have such a mixed bag of printers - printers that are and are NOT

supported - I am leaning towards a Universal Print Driver. I just called

ThinPrint for pricing information, and it seems pretty reasonable. Now I

just need to sell it to management.

 

 

"moncho" <moncho@NOspmanywhere.com> wrote in message

news:L94dk.22819$co7.15376@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com...

> JohnB wrote:

>> I had posted something earlier on printing problems and realized that I'm

>> probably going about asking for help here in the wrong way.

>>

>> I'll explain the situation first;

>> I am working a temporary assignment at a company that has about 30 to 40

>> TS users. They each have their own printer. All clients are XP or

>> Vista, most are XP. The server is 2003 SP2 R2. One of my goals here is

>> to help with their printing problems.

>>

>> All printers are inexpensive personal printers. Most are HP Laserjets;

>> 1006, 1010, 1012, 1015, 1018, 1020, 1022 and 1055. With a few Oki,

>> Brother and HP inkjet printers mixed in. No business class network

>> printers (unfortunately). They are learning the hard way that it doesn't

>> pay to "go cheap", they have massive printing problems. 90% of all calls

>> are for printing problems from their RDP session.

>>

>> I took a look at an HP document that lists which HP printers are

>> supported and which aren't.

>>

>> As I said, the majority of their IT problems are printer/RDP related and,

>> with almost all of those the issue is; in their RDP session they loose

>> their local/default printer. They somehow have other printers in their

>> RDP session, other user's local printer, and so they invariably send

>> output to someone else's printer when this happens.

>> What I have found is, if they logout of their RDP session and log back

>> in, they get their printer back. Sometimes that *doesn't* work. And so

>> I've also found that if I stop and stop the server spooler while they're

>> logged out, they get their printer when they log back in.

>>

>> I had read here suggestions to try a third-party printing solution. I

>> have a colleague that uses ThinPrint where she works. She did not set it

>> up, it was there when she started. And without me describing our issues

>> first, she said "one of the problems they have is, the printer disappears

>> from the RDP session". So I'm leery of suggesting to management this as

>> a solution, based on that.

>>

>> One of the replies/suggestions I got from a previous post suggested using

>> the Fallback driver or use this page -

>> http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=239088 - to edit the registry. I read

>> a couple articles on the web about the Fallback driver and didn't get a

>> warm & fuzzy feeling about that being a good solution to this issue. And

>> the Microsoft page referred to making changes to the registry on the 2003

>> server, something I would only do as a last resort.

>>

>> From all the research I've done, everything points to this being an

>> issue with incompatible printers. Printers that aren't supported by TS.

>> But, I used the HP document and created a checklist of which HP printers

>> that are supported and which aren't (at this company). And what I have

>> found is; both supported and non-supported HP printers have the problem

>> where they *disappear* from the RDP session. The same problem that also

>> happens with ThinPrint.

>>

>> So I am *hoping* to find someone that has been down this same road. And

>> that they have found a solution that works reliably and consistently.

>>

>> TIA

>

> JohnB,

>

> Most of us have been in similar situations and now that we know you

> already have 30-40 printers in place, you have a few different choices

> to make.

>

> As for TS-Compatible printers, other than the list Vera mentioned, I

> do not know of another list. Either way, installing third-party

> printer drivers on a TS has the possibility of making the print

> spooler go nuts.

>

> IMHO, If you stick with ANY printer that accepts PCL commands, you

> should be fine because you can use the generic HP LaserJet PCL driver

> in W2K/W2K3/W2K8 to print. Will this guarantee 100% compatibility,

> no, but it will work 99.9% of the time without issues once setup.

> Problems may crop up when dealing with multiple paper trays per

> printer.

>

> With your current crop of printers and situation, using ThinPrint may

> be a better option. I know your co-worker has used it before and had

> some issues, it may be best to investigate this option first. I do

> not know about the disappearing printer issues with ThinPrint but

> maybe their tech support can help with that. This solution SHOULD

> (but may not) allow you to use your current printers, even

> the LIDIL printers.

>

> If money is not an issue, heck, outfit them with lowest cost

> HP LaserJets that accept PCL commands and you should be good to

> go. I just setup a Lanier Printer that is NOT in the current

> MS Printer list but it accepts PCL commands so I just used the

> HP LaserJet 4V printer driver and all is well. I setup a

> similar printer 2 years ago and it has never had an issue.

>

> If the employees are in the same office, see if you can get

> management to purchase a couple workgroup printers to limit the

> amount of printers needed.

>

> It seems that you have to pick the lesser of a few evils or

> convince management to start over and purchase new printers that

> are on HP's list or some other list. Either way, it sounds

> like you have some work ahead of you.

>

> moncho

[Guest moncho]

Re: Printing problems - compatable printers

 

JohnB wrote:

> Thank you for all the information.

>

> Since we have such a mixed bag of printers - printers that are and are

> NOT supported - I am leaning towards a Universal Print Driver. I just

> called ThinPrint for pricing information, and it seems pretty

> reasonable. Now I just need to sell it to management.

 

Welcome. Hope all works out for you and management doesn't give

you to much of a hard time.

 

moncho

>

>

> "moncho" <moncho@NOspmanywhere.com> wrote in message

> news:L94dk.22819$co7.15376@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com...

>> JohnB wrote:

>>> I had posted something earlier on printing problems and realized that

>>> I'm probably going about asking for help here in the wrong way.

>>>

>>> I'll explain the situation first;

>>> I am working a temporary assignment at a company that has about 30 to

>>> 40 TS users. They each have their own printer. All clients are XP

>>> or Vista, most are XP. The server is 2003 SP2 R2. One of my goals

>>> here is to help with their printing problems.

>>>

>>> All printers are inexpensive personal printers. Most are HP

>>> Laserjets; 1006, 1010, 1012, 1015, 1018, 1020, 1022 and 1055. With a

>>> few Oki, Brother and HP inkjet printers mixed in. No business class

>>> network printers (unfortunately). They are learning the hard way

>>> that it doesn't pay to "go cheap", they have massive printing

>>> problems. 90% of all calls are for printing problems from their RDP

>>> session.

>>>

>>> I took a look at an HP document that lists which HP printers are

>>> supported and which aren't.

>>>

>>> As I said, the majority of their IT problems are printer/RDP related

>>> and, with almost all of those the issue is; in their RDP session they

>>> loose their local/default printer. They somehow have other printers

>>> in their RDP session, other user's local printer, and so they

>>> invariably send output to someone else's printer when this happens.

>>> What I have found is, if they logout of their RDP session and log

>>> back in, they get their printer back. Sometimes that *doesn't*

>>> work. And so I've also found that if I stop and stop the server

>>> spooler while they're logged out, they get their printer when they

>>> log back in.

>>>

>>> I had read here suggestions to try a third-party printing solution.

>>> I have a colleague that uses ThinPrint where she works. She did not

>>> set it up, it was there when she started. And without me describing

>>> our issues first, she said "one of the problems they have is, the

>>> printer disappears from the RDP session". So I'm leery of suggesting

>>> to management this as a solution, based on that.

>>>

>>> One of the replies/suggestions I got from a previous post suggested

>>> using the Fallback driver or use this page -

>>> http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=239088 - to edit the registry. I

>>> read a couple articles on the web about the Fallback driver and

>>> didn't get a warm & fuzzy feeling about that being a good solution to

>>> this issue. And the Microsoft page referred to making changes to the

>>> registry on the 2003 server, something I would only do as a last resort.

>>>

>>> From all the research I've done, everything points to this being an

>>> issue with incompatible printers. Printers that aren't supported by

>>> TS. But, I used the HP document and created a checklist of which HP

>>> printers that are supported and which aren't (at this company). And

>>> what I have found is; both supported and non-supported HP printers

>>> have the problem where they *disappear* from the RDP session. The

>>> same problem that also happens with ThinPrint.

>>>

>>> So I am *hoping* to find someone that has been down this same road.

>>> And that they have found a solution that works reliably and

>>> consistently.

>>>

>>> TIA

>>

>> JohnB,

>>

>> Most of us have been in similar situations and now that we know you

>> already have 30-40 printers in place, you have a few different choices

>> to make.

>>

>> As for TS-Compatible printers, other than the list Vera mentioned, I

>> do not know of another list. Either way, installing third-party

>> printer drivers on a TS has the possibility of making the print

>> spooler go nuts.

>>

>> IMHO, If you stick with ANY printer that accepts PCL commands, you

>> should be fine because you can use the generic HP LaserJet PCL driver

>> in W2K/W2K3/W2K8 to print. Will this guarantee 100% compatibility,

>> no, but it will work 99.9% of the time without issues once setup.

>> Problems may crop up when dealing with multiple paper trays per

>> printer.

>>

>> With your current crop of printers and situation, using ThinPrint may

>> be a better option. I know your co-worker has used it before and had

>> some issues, it may be best to investigate this option first. I do

>> not know about the disappearing printer issues with ThinPrint but

>> maybe their tech support can help with that. This solution SHOULD

>> (but may not) allow you to use your current printers, even

>> the LIDIL printers.

>>

>> If money is not an issue, heck, outfit them with lowest cost

>> HP LaserJets that accept PCL commands and you should be good to

>> go. I just setup a Lanier Printer that is NOT in the current

>> MS Printer list but it accepts PCL commands so I just used the

>> HP LaserJet 4V printer driver and all is well. I setup a

>> similar printer 2 years ago and it has never had an issue.

>>

>> If the employees are in the same office, see if you can get

>> management to purchase a couple workgroup printers to limit the

>> amount of printers needed.

>>

>> It seems that you have to pick the lesser of a few evils or

>> convince management to start over and purchase new printers that

>> are on HP's list or some other list. Either way, it sounds

>> like you have some work ahead of you.

>>

>> moncho

>

[paulp]

Re: Printing problems - compatable printers

 

Hi JohnB,

 

it looks very much as if your problem was really caused by printer drivers not suitable for TS - just as the other posters wrote.

ThinPrint .print Application Server Engine or RDP Engine (depending on your needs) seem in this situation like the right solution as it replaces all native drivers on the TS with the ThinPrint Output Gateway (this is the driver solution for TS). This keeps your printer-driver administration at the minimum. As you are using XP/Vista-clients this solution will works right our of the box.

 

In addition to driver free printing offered by this solution you get the possibilities for bandwidth control for printing, print data compression and a reliable solution for client-printer mapping.

 

You can test drive the solutions for free for 30 days.

 

Hop you will find the right solution for your problems!

 

Cheers

 

Paul Pawlicki

ThinPrint

ThinPrint Homepage - High-performance print solutions for distributed networks, Citrix Presentation Server and Microsoft Terminal Services