Using group policies, you can deploy, change, and remove printers from computers group together into an organization unit (a "template" to use the WolfPrep term)
Requirements
In order to succesfully deploy a workstation to a template, you will need administrative rights over said OU, and a workstation with the GPMC and print management plugins installed.
Deploying a Printer
DO NOT use the Group Policy Management Console to deploy printers. Printers can be successfully delivered when set up from GPMC, but they will not be successfully removed from workstations when they are disassociated from the policy.
Instead, you should FIRST create and link an empty policy to the OU where you wish the printer deployed, then associate it with the "Printer Management Console"
Select "Add/Remove Servers" from the "Action" menu of the Printer Manager console, or use the key sequence Alt+A then Alt+S to bring up the Add/Remove Servers dialog.
Enter the print server's full name, print00.unity.ad.ncsu.edu and press the "Add to List" button or press Alt+T on the keyboard so that you can manage services on print00.
Under the print server, you will find several collections, most of which are simply informational in our Samba based environment.
| Drivers | Shows the print drivers installed. For Wolfcopy, we have one print driver for every queue, to easily set indpendent defaults. Print drivers should be maintained from the linux/samba console. |
|---|---|
| Forms | Shows the available forms. This also should normally not be modified |
| Ports | Windows requires a "port" but Samba doesn't use them. Do not modify ! |
| Printers | Here the actual printer objects reside. You can edit these however you see fit. |
To deploy a printer to an OU, first, select the printer from the list, right click to get a contextual menu, and select "Deploy with Group Policy"
Select the GPO to which you want to attach the printer. You should create it in the GPMC plugin if you haven't done so already.
Check "The computers that this GPO applies to (per machine)" under "Deploy this printer connection to the following"
Select the "Add" button to add the printer to the policy. A list of printers is presented in case you assign several.
Removing a Printer
And if you want to remove a printer connection, you can open the GPO using the Group Policy Object Editor, right-click on the printer in question, and select Remove. The printer will disappear on computer reboot.
Timing
Workstations will see the new printers when they next restart. A startup script pushes a command called PushPrinterConnections.exe to each workstation under Unity Computers at restart.
You'll find PushPrinterConnections.exe in the %Windir%\PMCSnap folder.
Logging
To assist in troubleshooting, there is a log file, %Windir%\temp\PpcMachine.log stored on the computer where the printer connection is being deployed.
Other Resources
There is an excellent article, complete with screen by screen pictures of this process at http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Deploying-Printers-Group-Policy-Windows-R2.html
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