RDP Printing at home

[Guest Dellboy]

I have a Win2003 terminal Server with 70 clients, mostly windows

2000/XP/Vista, some macs. Most users work from home at one time or another

and want to be able to print to their local printer, which could be almost

anything from the local shop.

 

Home printing (per TS2003 native rdp printing) works on some PCs and not

other clients, depending on the local printer attached to the PC. I find the

fallback printer drivers have never worked for my clients.

 

I know there are third party tools to allow "seamless" printing to local

printers, no matter what they are. Two that come to mind are Thinprint .print

and Tricerat Screwdrivers. I looked into these about a year ago and then the

customer wasn't interested so I left it. I'm sure one told me their

technology was being used in the next version of Terminal Server, I think

Thinprint but I'm not sure.

 

Anyway, my query is this: -

 

Has anyone tried either of these and what is their experience? Does it work

in all cases? Is it easy to administer? What is their support like?

 

Wrong site I know, but is there a product like these that does Macs as well?

about 10% are macs.

 

Finally I suppose, are there any other "low maintenance" alternatives to be

recommended? I find the native fallback printer drivers just don't work for

my clients.

 

One of my customers is very interested in buying a solution to the remote

printing problem, and I have to now recommend one. Any advice gratefully

received. (How does everyone else manage that has remote printing

requirements?)

 

Thanks in advance

[Guest Patrick Rouse]

RE: RDP Printing at home

 

As I replied in your other post, Print-IT and ThinPrint are my

recommendations. Both will work regardless of client printer model, but

support for Mac Clients only exists when there is a Windows Print Server

involved. I'm unaware of any universal print driver that fully supports

Macs. We plan to add native support for Macs, but I wouldn't expect this in

the next 12 months.

 

--

Patrick C. Rouse

Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server

SE, West Coast USA & Canada

Quest Software, Provision Networks Division

Virtual Client Solutions

http://www.provisionnetworks.com

 

 

"Dellboy" wrote:

> I have a Win2003 terminal Server with 70 clients, mostly windows

> 2000/XP/Vista, some macs. Most users work from home at one time or another

> and want to be able to print to their local printer, which could be almost

> anything from the local shop.

>

> Home printing (per TS2003 native rdp printing) works on some PCs and not

> other clients, depending on the local printer attached to the PC. I find the

> fallback printer drivers have never worked for my clients.

>

> I know there are third party tools to allow "seamless" printing to local

> printers, no matter what they are. Two that come to mind are Thinprint .print

> and Tricerat Screwdrivers. I looked into these about a year ago and then the

> customer wasn't interested so I left it. I'm sure one told me their

> technology was being used in the next version of Terminal Server, I think

> Thinprint but I'm not sure.

>

> Anyway, my query is this: -

>

> Has anyone tried either of these and what is their experience? Does it work

> in all cases? Is it easy to administer? What is their support like?

>

> Wrong site I know, but is there a product like these that does Macs as well?

> about 10% are macs.

>

> Finally I suppose, are there any other "low maintenance" alternatives to be

> recommended? I find the native fallback printer drivers just don't work for

> my clients.

>

> One of my customers is very interested in buying a solution to the remote

> printing problem, and I have to now recommend one. Any advice gratefully

> received. (How does everyone else manage that has remote printing

> requirements?)

>

> Thanks in advance

>

[Guest George Yin]

RE: RDP Printing at home

 

Hello,

 

Thank you for your post.

 

If I understand properly, when clients connect to terminal server their

local printers are not redirected properly sometimes even though you have

configured fall back print driver. You would like to know what third party

tools should be used.

 

I completely understand your concern. However, as a Microsoft support

engineer, it is inappropriate for me to recommend a third party products as

we have little knowledge on these products. Other customers who read the

public newsgroups regularly may share their experience with you. Thank you

for your understanding.

 

I want to share some information about why the fallback printer driver

doesn't work. As you may know, fallback printer driver mechanism depends on

the PS and PCL specification. Printing Terminal Server session documents

may still be disabled for some client computers if the fallback printer

driver's vendors have deviated from PS or PCL specifications. For more

information, please read the "New fallback printer driver capability" part

in detail.

 

Terminal Services in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/2284b19b-30a6-42b5-9b

d1-ff301f7248b01033.mspx?mfr=true

 

Usually, if you want the users' documents to be redirected to their local

printers, you should install the same printer driver on the terminal

server. We understand that it is a little inconvenient. In Windows Server

2008, we have implemented a new feature named Terminal Service Easy Print

drive which offers the following functionality:

 

o Increased reliability of Terminal Services printing for both RemoteApp

and remote desktop sessions.

o Support for legacy and new printer drivers without the necessity of

installing these drivers on the terminal server.

o Scalability improvements over Windows Server 2003 in terms of printer

enumeration performance. During the Winlogon process, the spooler only

enumerates printers that are available for a user in a particular session

instead of enumerating all redirected printers. Therefore, printers are

enumerated on a per-session basis, instead of on a per-user basis.

o Enhanced available printer capabilities. The Terminal Services Easy Print

driver provides rich and complete printer capabilities in remote sessions.

All of the physical printer driver's capabilities are available for use

when a user views the printing preferences.

 

For more information, please refer to the following links:

 

Terminal Services Printing

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/484d57e7-feb4-4dc

c-9d13-152c053516471033.mspx?mfr=true

 

TechNet Webcast: Terminal Services Easy Print (Level 300)

http://www.microsoft.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&P

arams=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032355423%22

%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF59

5171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%

3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYData

SvcParams%5e

 

 

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to let me

know.

 

Sincerely,

George Yin

Microsoft Online Support

Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

 

Get Secure! - http://www.microsoft.com/security

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[Guest Karel Semerák]

Re: RDP Printing at home

 

Dear all,

 

I apologize to you all that my question is most likely redundant, but I am

quite new to this "local printing" issued.

 

My situation:

my wife works remotely from home and connects via Remote Desktop Connection

in her Windows Vista Business (Build 6001, SP1 v. 668) to her office

computer. Local Printers are enabled in the settings of the RDC. VPN channel

is opened using Cisco VPN Client version 5.0.02.0090.

 

She uses the enterprise applications running in the MS Access 2003

environment and for other calculations she also uses MS Excel 2003.

 

At home we have multifunction Canon Pixma MP600R device, drivers of which

have successfully been installed on her laptop. The printing device is

accessed as a network printer via local wifi. Local printing from laptop is

pretty smooth and no problems have never been detected. It is set as the

default printer on the laptop. On the server side, drivers for the above

mentioned printing device are definitely not installed on the terminal

services server and definitely won't be.

 

As you are most likely getting now, she (therefore I) has problems with

printing at home on the local printing device and she (therefore I) is

searching intensively for a solution :-) Currently, only the network

printers available to her office computer are displayed in the Printers

combobox when setting up printing from remote applications.

 

If I understood correctly to your post in this thread and also to others'

posts addressing the similar issue in other threads, there could be a way

how to successfully achieve what we need. BUT (intentionally in capitals) it

is not that simple - if even possible - without involvement of the TS

administrator.

 

Well, is there a chance that I could succeed using local printer for her

printouts from remotely run applications?

 

Any piece of information or even help is appreciated.

 

Thanks and kind regards,

 

Karel Semerák

[Guest Vera Noest [MVP]]

Re: RDP Printing at home

 

You have explained and understood the situation perfectly!

I fully understand and support the TS Administrator for not wanting

to install a printer driver for this printer, as it is

incompatible with TS and thus could crash the printer spooler on

the server and possibly the whole server.

 

The only thing that you could ask them is to define a fallback

driver on the TS. That is no risk on the TS, since it will use a

native Windows printer driver as a substitute driver for all

unknown printers.

For your wife's printer, this would be the “HP DeskJet 500” printer

driver. But most likely, your wife's printer will not produce any

useful output with such a printer driver. There is a small chance

that it could print plain text, though.

 

Here's a nice article on fallback printers:

 

How Microsoft's Windows 2003 SP1 Fallback Printer Driver Works

http://www.brianmadden.com/content/article/How-Microsofts-Windows-

2003-SP1-Fallback-Printer-Driver-Works-which-now-supports-color

 

Does the TS allow drive redirection? If so, the easiest way could

be to save the output in a file and print it locally.

 

_________________________________________________________

Vera Noest

MCSE, CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server

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

___ please respond in newsgroup, NOT by private email ___

 

Karel Semerák <karel.semerak@windowslive.com> wrote on 27 feb 2008

in microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services:

> Dear all,

>

> I apologize to you all that my question is most likely

> redundant, but I am quite new to this "local printing" issued.

>

> My situation:

> my wife works remotely from home and connects via Remote Desktop

> Connection in her Windows Vista Business (Build 6001, SP1 v.

> 668) to her office computer. Local Printers are enabled in the

> settings of the RDC. VPN channel is opened using Cisco VPN

> Client version 5.0.02.0090.

>

> She uses the enterprise applications running in the MS Access

> 2003 environment and for other calculations she also uses MS

> Excel 2003.

>

> At home we have multifunction Canon Pixma MP600R device, drivers

> of which have successfully been installed on her laptop. The

> printing device is accessed as a network printer via local wifi.

> Local printing from laptop is pretty smooth and no problems have

> never been detected. It is set as the default printer on the

> laptop. On the server side, drivers for the above mentioned

> printing device are definitely not installed on the terminal

> services server and definitely won't be.

>

> As you are most likely getting now, she (therefore I) has

> problems with printing at home on the local printing device and

> she (therefore I) is searching intensively for a solution :-)

> Currently, only the network printers available to her office

> computer are displayed in the Printers combobox when setting up

> printing from remote applications.

>

> If I understood correctly to your post in this thread and also

> to others' posts addressing the similar issue in other threads,

> there could be a way how to successfully achieve what we need.

> BUT (intentionally in capitals) it is not that simple - if even

> possible - without involvement of the TS administrator.

>

> Well, is there a chance that I could succeed using local printer

> for her printouts from remotely run applications?

>

> Any piece of information or even help is appreciated.

>

> Thanks and kind regards,

>

> Karel Semerák

[Guest George Yin]

RE: RDP Printing at home

 

Hello,

 

I am just writing to see how everything is going. If you have any updates

or need any further assistance on this issue, please feel free to let me

know. I am glad to be of assistance.

 

Sincerely,

George Yin

Microsoft Online Support

Microsoft Global Technical Support Center

 

Get Secure! - http://www.microsoft.com/security

=====================================================

When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so

that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

=====================================================

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.