Question

Terminal Services Printers not removed on session logout

Asked by: jdroger2

One of our terminal servers no longer removes user's printers reliably when they logout.  printers stay listed under printers and faxes, and often cannot be manually deleted because of a message that the printer could not be found.  The biggest problem this causes is that it eventually begins preventing users from bringing their printers into their session with them.  The only way to clear out the bad printers is to reboot the server.

We need to know what's causing this and how to stop it.  It is likely related to a secondary issue where some user's printers have begun showing up as Terminal Services Fallback printers - previously these printers simply would not have been brought into the session.  We did not enable the TS Fallback Printers in the GPO, and have added a GPO to disable them that does not seem to be working, though the GPO modeling wizard indicates that the GPO is applying properly.  Is loopback processing required to do this?

There is no Citrix involved, just straight Windows 2003 Terminal Services

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Asked On
2009-01-20 at 07:49:41ID24067278
Tags

Terminal Services

,

Printer

,

remote

Topics

Miscellaneous Software

,

Remote Desktop/Terminal Services

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: kory1006Posted on 2009-01-20 at 08:03:16ID: 23421269

You may want to take a look at my open question.  There may be some insight there that can help.  I have gone now about 2 weeks without seeing a duplicate printer from different sessions since using the script that is listed in my open question.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Server/Remote_Desktop-Terminal_Services/Q_23961710.html

 

by: jdroger2Posted on 2009-01-27 at 07:48:10ID: 23477568

Update - The terminal Services fallback printer part of this issue has been resolved, the setting was enabled in a seperate GPO.

kory1006 - I have taken a look at the scripts posted as part of your question, and my understanding is that for the changes that the script makes, a reboot would be required anyways.  I don't think this helps us, as a reboot by itself appears to resolve the immediate issue of users not being able to print until the ghost printers re-accumulate.  We're looking for a solution that does not require a reboot, as the reboot is often required at an inconvenient time.

Having removed the Terminal Services Fallback Printer we are monitoring to see if this resolves the other issue.

Thanks,
Matt

 

by: kory1006Posted on 2009-01-27 at 07:50:05ID: 23477594

I dont reboot after running the scripts.  I run the script then restart the print spooler service.  I havent had any issues since running the script after a nightly reboot.

 

by: kory1006Posted on 2009-02-13 at 12:47:09ID: 23637155

I have one more registry tweak I found that will only map the clients default printer.  It helps cut down on resources used on the terminal server.

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns\RDPDR
Add a DWORD called RedirectDefaultPrinterOnly
Sel the value to 0x00000001.

I have my TS do reboot daily (3AM), after the reboot the script runs that I showed you before.  Using the comment from the other EE user in my question, the script, and this registry key, I have not had any issues with my TS.

 

by: kory1006Posted on 2009-02-13 at 12:48:46ID: 23637167

That registry key gets added to the clients not the TS.

 

by: jdroger2Posted on 2009-04-23 at 09:48:53ID: 24217110

After implementing a nightly reboot, and a secondary terminal server to take some of the strain off of the main terminal server we have not had any further problems related to this issue.  The issue likely still exists but we plan to do a fresh install of the OS on the main terminal server which we expect will be the ultimate resolution.

 

by: msticklerPosted on 2009-09-03 at 08:10:29ID: 25251472

I am having a similar issue and believe it may be tied to a lexmark printer that is not widows 2003 compatible on one of my clients. None of the printers from this client ever get deleted unless there is a server restart. The lexmark does show up on the list of configured printers (once for each session he logs in) and attempts to remove cause windows explorer to hang (doesnt matter whether the attempt to remove it occurs from a rdc session or sitting in front of the console). This particular client also has extremely long logout times. I'm going to try the registry edit listed above and hope this solves the printer deletion issue and the logout issue (which i believe is caused by the printer driver hanging during removal).

Will update with results.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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