setup network HP printer to default to grayscale

On the server hosting the printer, check the properties for that printer.  There are usually TWO sections to set the settings up.  If you've got a setting that's something along the lines of B&W only/GrayOnly, you'll want to set that value in PRINTING DEFAULTS, not printing PREFERENCES.  The Advanced tab frequently has the PRINTING DEFAULTS, while the main general properties page has the Preferences.

Preferences are one-off type settings, whereas, you guessed it, DEFAULTS is more of a forever thingy.

Bob

So I just changed the Pritning Defaults for the printer on the server side. Added the networked printer to a user's machine and clicked print on a color page. It still printed in color.

Why is it not defaulting to grayscale?

Hmmm.  Let me get back to some basics---is this printer attached directly to the network via the network card?  And, are the client machines connecting DIRECTLY to the printer to print,(without having to connect to a 'server'?)  The N on the printer model suggests that it's got a Net card.  And the most common way of using it with a network card is direct TCP/IP printing, where the client prints to the TCP/IP port.  In this model, you'd have to set the printer up on each individual workstation, adjusting the Printing Default and the Printing Preference, as the administrator on that machine then moving on to the next.  If you were to get fancy, you might be able to capture the settings on one PC and make a 'registry' patch or similar and deploy that patch with a login script so that all the PCs get the same settings.  Pretty tough way to go though.

In order to use a single point of control, you'd have to have the server make the ONLY direct TCP/IP connection to the printer, then, from the SERVER, share that printer.  The CLIENTS will then connect to the server's SHARE of that printer.  WIth this model, you can then set a global configuration so that all users who connect THRU the server get the settings that you want to set.

Sadly, this is about the only way to control this.  You might try downloading and installing HP's WebJetAdmin--it may have some settings that can disable the color components of the printer, although I'm not sure.  WebJetAdmin has gotten pretty big over the last few years, and I've tried to avoid it.

The printer is connected to the network via the network card.

I'm not sure what you mean by machine connecting directly to the printer. The printer has a static IP and is local on the server. The machines connect to the printer through the server.

I have 200 machines and cannot possibly configure each individually. Surely, there must be some way to set the defaults on the server side and have them propagate to the clients.

Well I don't know what I did different this time, but setting the default settings on the server seems to have done the trick. Thanks for your help.