asked on

Deploying printers through Group Policy on Windows XP clients

Hi

I am trying to deploy network printers using Group Policy but am having some trouble with some XP clients.

I have installed three printers on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server, using the HP Universal Print Driver PCL6 (x64 and x86 drivers installed).

I created a Group Policy, linked it to an OU where the users exist, and deployed the printers using the Print Management Console to that policy.

Works great for Windows 7 clients, but not so well for XP. I'm having mixed results.

Some XP clients are fine, and the three printers install within seconds of running a gpupdate/force.

Others don't install the printers at all. I can see the new driver being installed in the system logs, but no log of why the printers were not deployed. I can add them manually to the clients with no problem.

I have read about a requirement for pushprinterconnections.exe to be present on XP machines for this to work, however after further reading I understand this is no longer a requirement, as long as the server and client have KB943729 installed (Group Policy Preference Client Side Extensions). I have confirmed that both clients and server have this installed.

I should mention that the print server is a 2008 DC, but the primary DC with all the FSMO roles is a 2003 box (soon to be demoted!). The 2003 primary DC has the KB installed too.

Any ideas?

Cheers

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

chris_martin62

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

chris_martin62

Oh forgot make sure you have client side extensions installed on the XP computers.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=3628

failed

ASKER

Hi chris_martin62,

Thanks for your suggestions; I made sure the client side extensions were installed on the client machine (the KB was already listed in add/remove programs, but I manually installed it from your link anyway to make sure). This didn't make any difference unfortunately.

I went through your walkthrough, which isn't the method I want to use (I prefer using the print management console, its easier) but I gave it a try anyway. The printer still doesn't install, however I am now seeing something useful in the application logs:

The user '(printer IP address)' preference item in the '(Group Policy name)' Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x80070706 The print processor is unknown.' This error was suppressed.

Any idea what this means?

Cheers

failed

ASKER

I followed this article, but the printer still does not install:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931021/en-us

failed

ASKER

Ah hold on, I rebooted and now the printer has installed! Hooray!

Now I'd like to know why it works using Group Policy Preferences, but not using deployment via the Print Management Console.

chris_martin62

All i know is that when we switched to 2008 server we started using Group policy Preferences and have not had many problems.

chris_martin62

hey if you don't mind can you mark that article as helpful.
thanks .