Forcing "List in the directory" for a printer?

[Guest ever90321@mypacks.net]

At my office, we are currently doing some spring cleaning on our

printers, rearranging some units, tweaking installations, etc. We

have a label printer on the network and it's currently being shared by

one of the workstations. All this is fine, and others can use the

"Browse" feature to find it and access it through that machine. What

bothers me is there is no "List in the directory" check box alongside

the "Sharing" settings. It's simply not there. It would be useful if

uses could go one place (Active Directory on our SBS 2003 server) to

add printers instead of digging through two different interfaces. If

I add the printer through the original workstation, however, I *do*

get a "List in the directory". box.

 

Can somebody tell me what controls "List in the directory"? Windows

has so many hidden options in the Registry, I was thinking it could be

as simple as adding a new value or flipping something from 0 to 1. I

did find where the check box setting would be stored, at

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\

 

in the Attributes value for the specific printer, but setting bit 14

on and restarting the computer didn't force an entry in Active

Directory. I realize I can also manually add a printer in Active

Directory Users & Computers, but am not sure I can direct it to that

particular workstation for the drivers. I've also browsed AD manually

and have an idea which settings are needed and where, and might even

try doing this manually.

 

But what is the easiest way to accomplish this? Is the missing check

box caused by an actual .dll or .exe ? Could the printer just be

installed wrong? Thanks for any suggestions.

 

Todd

[Guest Anthony [MVP]]

Re: Forcing "List in the directory" for a printer?

 

Todd,

I am probably not understanding you fully. You say that you *can* publish it

from the original workstation.

In Group Policy there is also a computer configuration to allow/disallow

printers to be published. By default it is allowed. Maybe a policy is

preventing you from publishing it on other workstations.

Anthony,

http://www.airdesk.co.uk

 

 

 

<ever90321@mypacks.net> wrote in message

news:a0656a45-d339-40e3-933f-b4cca6830d13@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

> At my office, we are currently doing some spring cleaning on our

> printers, rearranging some units, tweaking installations, etc. We

> have a label printer on the network and it's currently being shared by

> one of the workstations. All this is fine, and others can use the

> "Browse" feature to find it and access it through that machine. What

> bothers me is there is no "List in the directory" check box alongside

> the "Sharing" settings. It's simply not there. It would be useful if

> uses could go one place (Active Directory on our SBS 2003 server) to

> add printers instead of digging through two different interfaces. If

> I add the printer through the original workstation, however, I *do*

> get a "List in the directory". box.

>

> Can somebody tell me what controls "List in the directory"? Windows

> has so many hidden options in the Registry, I was thinking it could be

> as simple as adding a new value or flipping something from 0 to 1. I

> did find where the check box setting would be stored, at

>

> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\

>

> in the Attributes value for the specific printer, but setting bit 14

> on and restarting the computer didn't force an entry in Active

> Directory. I realize I can also manually add a printer in Active

> Directory Users & Computers, but am not sure I can direct it to that

> particular workstation for the drivers. I've also browsed AD manually

> and have an idea which settings are needed and where, and might even

> try doing this manually.

>

> But what is the easiest way to accomplish this? Is the missing check

> box caused by an actual .dll or .exe ? Could the printer just be

> installed wrong? Thanks for any suggestions.

>

> Todd

[Guest ever90321@mypacks.net]

Re: Forcing "List in the directory" for a printer?

 

On Apr 29, 2:05 am, "Anthony [MVP]" <anth...@no-reply.com> wrote:

> I am probably not understanding you fully. You say that you *can* publish it

> from the original workstation.

> In Group Policy there is also a computer configuration to allow/disallow

> printers to be published. By default it is allowed. Maybe a policy is

> preventing you from publishing it on other workstations.

 

Anthony,

 

Sorry, that didn't come out as clearly as I'd liked. I cannot publish

the label printer from the workstation in question. But if I add the

label printer on my computer, through the remote workstation, a "List

in the directory" check box does appear. The remote workstation is

actually sharing another printer as well, and its properties do have a

publishing option, so the problem appears to be printer-specific, and

not the result of a blanket policy.

 

But here's a clue. I just noticed that even though the properties on

my workstation show "List in the directory" (the box is actually

checked by default), the printer still does not appear in AD. Maybe

this is a side effect of me tweaking the registry yesterday, I dunno.

From my desk, I am able to change the sharing settings for other

shared printers on the network due to my administrator privileges, but

attempts to change any such settings for the label printer generates a

"printer settings could not be saved..." error. I also noticed that

the only label printer driver installed on the remote workstation is

the NT4.0 / 2000 variety, and all our workstations run XP. I plan to

try fixing this later today, to see if it makes a difference.

 

Do you have any other suggestions?

 

Todd

[Guest ever90321@mypacks.net]

Re: Forcing "List in the directory" for a printer?

 

On Apr 29, 11:03 am, ever90...@mypacks.net wrote:

> On Apr 29, 2:05 am, "Anthony [MVP]" <anth...@no-reply.com> wrote:

>

> > I am probably not understanding you fully. You say that you *can* publish it

> > from the original workstation.

> > In Group Policy there is also a computer configuration to allow/disallow

> > printers to be published. By default it is allowed. Maybe a policy is

> > preventing you from publishing it on other workstations.

>

> Anthony,

>

> Sorry, that didn't come out as clearly as I'd liked. I cannot publish

> the label printer from the workstation in question. But if I add the

> label printer on my computer, through the remote workstation, a "List

....

 

After all that, I found an updated driver, now with Vista

compatibility, on the manufacturer's web site. UPS is apparently

shipping older drivers on their CD's. With the newest driver (March

2008), I can now add the printer to Active Directory. Hey, it's only

8 years late! :(

 

Todd

[Guest Anthony [MVP]]

Re: Forcing "List in the directory" for a printer?

 

Well done!

<ever90321@mypacks.net> wrote in message

news:700873e1-a2d4-47b6-b647-fd20cf1de4f8@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

> On Apr 29, 11:03 am, ever90...@mypacks.net wrote:

>> On Apr 29, 2:05 am, "Anthony [MVP]" <anth...@no-reply.com> wrote:

>>

>> > I am probably not understanding you fully. You say that you *can*

>> > publish it

>> > from the original workstation.

>> > In Group Policy there is also a computer configuration to

>> > allow/disallow

>> > printers to be published. By default it is allowed. Maybe a policy is

>> > preventing you from publishing it on other workstations.

>>

>> Anthony,

>>

>> Sorry, that didn't come out as clearly as I'd liked. I cannot publish

>> the label printer from the workstation in question. But if I add the

>> label printer on my computer, through the remote workstation, a "List

> ...

>

> After all that, I found an updated driver, now with Vista

> compatibility, on the manufacturer's web site. UPS is apparently

> shipping older drivers on their CD's. With the newest driver (March

> 2008), I can now add the printer to Active Directory. Hey, it's only

> 8 years late! :(

>

> Todd