I hear ya Pete.. I just wonder if there's another way to assign printers since the 2003 policies force you to use a script. /trots off to google
Main Topics
Browse All TopicsI have two 03 DC's and one 08 DC in this location.. all serving the same network/subnet. I'm wanting to deploy printers based of security group membership. So I hopped on the 08 DC, created a new GPO, assigned it to the specific group I want. Then hindsight kicks in.. how well does 03 and 08 play together in terms of Group Policy?
Also I discover today that the old printer server is dying, I've created another on a VM using Server 08 and obviously I'd love to actually deploy the new server to all 250 of my users without visiting each desk. So will I need to upgrade/migrate my existing 03 DC's to 08 in oder for this new GPO to work properly? Does the 08 server need to be assigned a specific FSMO role?
All help MUCH appreciated.
Thanks
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
Afraid we haven't migrated to 2k8 yet, so I'm not sure if there are new ways to push out printers... Though I'm sure I've heard someone on here mention a printer management mmc which can be enforced by GPO or something...
And there's no guarantee that these new policy settings will even apply to the older clients or not! Though in that text I quoted, it does say you can see the supported OS list in the description for the setting itself (within GPMC)...
Not being much help am I... lol :(
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: PeteJThomasPosted on 2009-11-06 at 14:34:42ID: 25763679
Well, according to this:
4716059/Pl anning-and -Deploying - Group-Pol icy-2008
"Identifying interoperability issues
You need to consider possible interoperability issues when planning a Group Policy implementation in a mixed environment. Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista include many new Group Policy settings that are not used on Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP. However, even if the client and server computers in your organization run primarily Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP, you should use the GPMC included in Windows Server 2008 because it contains the latest policy settings. If you apply a GPO with newer policy settings to a previous operating system that does not support the policy setting, it will not cause a problem. Destination computers that are running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP Professional simply ignore policy settings supported only in Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista. To determine which policy settings apply to which operating systems, in the description for the policy setting, see the Supported on information, which explains which operating systems can read the policy setting."
from - http://www.scribd.com/doc/
It sounds like it's not a PROBLEM as such, but that new policies will be ignored by 'older' clients... Though at the moment I work in sole 2k3 environment, and about to migrate to a sole 2k8 environment, so I'm not speaking from personal experience here...
Pete