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I normally push out all my printers via group policy preferences. However, the new copy machines I have are using some stranger drivers and I can not install x64/x86 drivers on the same machine for my clients to pull drivers from. So now I have two machines setup with the printer so they can pull drivers. Ontop of this there is specific driver configuration settings such as requiring the user to enter an access code to print set. Once the printer is installed via GPP, it puts everything to the default such as color mode, and other custom settings we like.

I considered just using a Windows Print Server for this, but I do not know a way to push/delete these from clients like I can with GPP. Does anyone know how I can have a GPP copy the custom configuration I have set in the driver or have any recommendations?

2 Answers 2

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A print-server sounds like your best bet. Windows XP allows 'deployed' printers to be pushed if a certain file is run as a startup-script in a GPO. These printers are set through GPO on Windows Settings -> Deployed Printers in both the User and Computer GPO depending on how you want to do it. This isn't GPP, it's GP, and in my opinion more stable than GPP.

If your print-server is Server 2008 or 2008 R2 (I recommend R2 wherever possible for this), the Deployment can be handled through the Printer Management MMC. Right-click on the printer, select "Deploy with Group Policy," browse to the GPO you want to apply it to, pick users/computers as appropriate, and hit apply. The "Deployed Printers" option in this MMC will show printers deployed this way. Very handy.

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You can still use GPP, just use item-level targeting so that the specific preference for x64 only applies to x64 operating systems and the same with x86.

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  • You're right about this. However, I still have the issue with the driver configuration. For example in the driver we default prints to BW and enable user account code prompting. When the driver gets pulled via GPP it doesn't keep these preferences. If I use the server as a print server it does, but then I can't manage printers from a GPO.
    – Untalented
    Mar 12, 2011 at 15:05
  • @untalented I'm not sure what you mean. You can use GPP to deploy printer connections to whatever print server you want.
    – MDMarra
    Mar 12, 2011 at 23:11

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