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RDP Printing problem over a VPN

Not that the VPN has anything to do with this, but we have an employee that works from home and she is always complaining about speed (there is no real problem there), but my assistant decided to reformat her machine and reinstall everything. Everything works as it used to besides printing. I've finally took this problem over myself, read many posts on here trying to resolve the problem with no resolution. Her printer works fine at her house locally, but when you conect through RDP and choose her printer (which does show up) it throws an error. The error it throws doesn't give any info, it just says error cannot print. Has anyone came across this problem? I've tried everything from redownloading the drivers and reinstalling printers on both machines to some this idea below:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21545456/RDP-Printing.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+print+rdp

This guy got it to work by himself, but his own resolution didn't work for me.

Both machine's are XP Pro and the printer is an HP laserjet 1000. Our server is a Win 2003 Server R2

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Dave Stringfellow

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netadmin2004

ASKER

The driver was in there. I Readded the driver that I installed on both machines to be sure. Still no luck. There are no print errors in the event log. It sounds like the TS server isn't handling the actual printing function. Is that possible? Do the machine's actually do the work and not the TS server?

netadmin2004

ASKER

Never had this problem before. The printers just worked at our remote users homes with no additional work done to the server.

Cláudio Rodrigues

First question: is this printer connected to what kind of port? LPT? USB? IP?
Depending on the port you MUST have the latest RDP client or set a registry key.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302361

Second question. If you install a fake (test) printer on her PC and set it to use an HP LaserJet 5 driver installed to the LPT1, when you connect to the TS, does it automatically map that printer?

Third, please read this thread on EE to learn about printing on TS and why installing printer drivers on the TS is a bad, terrible idea.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/22957768/Terminal-Server-printing-problems.html

You will thank me one day for that I am sure. :-)

Claudio Rodrigues

Microsoft MVP
Windows Server - Terminal Services

netadmin2004

ASKER

Make sure the driver is in the TS server and uncheck bidirectional support.

Cláudio Rodrigues

Although the answer may have worked for you, note this is NOT a best practice and more than that you simply broke the first rule of thumb with TS that is NOT TO INSTALL ANY PRINTER DRIVER on a TS.

Cheers.

Claudio Rodrigues

Microsoft MVP
Windows Server - Terminal Services

netadmin2004

ASKER

I'm not sure if the problem was really the driver installed on the TS server. I wasn't using any DOT4 port. You were always able to see the printer as it was being carried over. The major real fix was to make sure that bidirectional printing support was unchecked on the remote machine, but still checked on the home machine. Again, I wasn't sure why the TS server was involved at all. the same RDP client was on both machines.