Duplicate Printers with Different Session Numbers

[Joelness]

We have a terminal server used by our external employees for their accounting
information and email. It is used by roughly 50 different users. We have it
set so TS redirects their local printers to the server. In the last week or
two we have noticed that just about every user has at least three copies of
their local printers, all listed under different session numbers. I need to
figure out a permanent solution to get rid of the excess printers so our
users don't get confused as to which printer is the real one.

 

[Jeff Pitsch]

Re: Duplicate Printers with Different Session Numbers

You need to test each print driver and make sure they are TS compatible.
The problem your having sounds like a classic bad print driver and it's
screwing up the spooler. Print drivers are the #1 cause of issues on
terminal servers. Citrix (yes I know youa ren't using Citrix but this tests
print drivers and nothing Citrix specific) has a utility called
StressPrinters that will help you:
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX109374

--
Jeff Pitsch
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Services

"Joelness" <Joelness@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1E347640-5E93-47EF-94C4-1E08C9A017AF@microsoft.com...
> We have a terminal server used by our external employees for their
> accounting
> information and email. It is used by roughly 50 different users. We have
> it
> set so TS redirects their local printers to the server. In the last week
> or
> two we have noticed that just about every user has at least three copies
> of
> their local printers, all listed under different session numbers. I need
> to
> figure out a permanent solution to get rid of the excess printers so our
> users don't get confused as to which printer is the real one.

 

[Joelness]

Re: Duplicate Printers with Different Session Numbers

Jeff, the printer drivers have been installed on the Terminal server and are
the identical printer drivers as the users'. I have had to do this for many
users already and know that if it can't find the driver the server will say
something like (PCL Rollback Driver) at the end of the printer if the driver
isn't found. None of the printers stated are doing this and I have checked
the server and sometimes even uninstalled the users driver and installed the
driver from the server onto the user's computer to be sure.

"Jeff Pitsch" wrote:

> You need to test each print driver and make sure they are TS compatible.
> The problem your having sounds like a classic bad print driver and it's
> screwing up the spooler. Print drivers are the #1 cause of issues on
> terminal servers. Citrix (yes I know youa ren't using Citrix but this tests
> print drivers and nothing Citrix specific) has a utility called
> StressPrinters that will help you:
> http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX109374
>
> --
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Services
>
> "Joelness" <Joelness@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:1E347640-5E93-47EF-94C4-1E08C9A017AF@microsoft.com...
> > We have a terminal server used by our external employees for their
> > accounting
> > information and email. It is used by roughly 50 different users. We have
> > it
> > set so TS redirects their local printers to the server. In the last week
> > or
> > two we have noticed that just about every user has at least three copies
> > of
> > their local printers, all listed under different session numbers. I need
> > to
> > figure out a permanent solution to get rid of the excess printers so our
> > users don't get confused as to which printer is the real one.
>
>
>

 

[Jeff Pitsch]

Re: Duplicate Printers with Different Session Numbers

I understand what your saying but the behavior you are seeing is almost
always going to be a bad print driver. My suggestion would be to buy a
3rd party universal print driver from the likes of Tricerat, Provision
Networks, ThinPrint. That way you'll never have to have print drivers
installed on the server and your servers will be much more stable and
you won't see problems like this.

Jeff Pitsch
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Services

Joelness wrote:
> Jeff, the printer drivers have been installed on the Terminal server and are
> the identical printer drivers as the users'. I have had to do this for many
> users already and know that if it can't find the driver the server will say
> something like (PCL Rollback Driver) at the end of the printer if the driver
> isn't found. None of the printers stated are doing this and I have checked
> the server and sometimes even uninstalled the users driver and installed the
> driver from the server onto the user's computer to be sure.
>
> "Jeff Pitsch" wrote:
>
>> You need to test each print driver and make sure they are TS compatible.
>> The problem your having sounds like a classic bad print driver and it's
>> screwing up the spooler. Print drivers are the #1 cause of issues on
>> terminal servers. Citrix (yes I know youa ren't using Citrix but this tests
>> print drivers and nothing Citrix specific) has a utility called
>> StressPrinters that will help you:
>> http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX109374
>>
>> --
>> Jeff Pitsch
>> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Services
>>
>> "Joelness" <Joelness@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:1E347640-5E93-47EF-94C4-1E08C9A017AF@microsoft.com...
>>> We have a terminal server used by our external employees for their
>>> accounting
>>> information and email. It is used by roughly 50 different users. We have
>>> it
>>> set so TS redirects their local printers to the server. In the last week
>>> or
>>> two we have noticed that just about every user has at least three copies
>>> of
>>> their local printers, all listed under different session numbers. I need
>>> to
>>> figure out a permanent solution to get rid of the excess printers so our
>>> users don't get confused as to which printer is the real one.
>>
>>