RDP Printing at home

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Dellboy

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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
 
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
>
 
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! - 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.
 
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
 
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
 
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! - 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.
 
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