Forcing "List in the directory" for a printer?

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ever90321@mypacks.net

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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
 
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
 
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
 
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
 
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
 
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