Links to sources for Terminal Server printing issues/fixes

Microsoft Technet - Configure settings for mapping client devices - link

Brian Madden - The Ultimate Guide to Terminal Server Printing - Design and Configuration - link

Brother Printers - Universal print drivers for Terminal Servers and Citrix - link

MS Terminal Services Blog - Windows Terminal Services Printing - link

Microsoft - Terminal Server Printer Redirection Wizard Tool - link

Microsoft - Choosing the right printer drivers - link

KTS - Terminal Server category - link

Following the installation of a printer driver on at  Windows 2003 Terminal Server, it’s good practice to check out the registry to make sure the driver is not using an unsupported Monitor or Print Processor.

To check for the presence of a print monitor:

1) Open Regedit

2) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3

3) locate the newly installed driver by name, click on the key (folder)

4) In the right hand pane you will see a series of settings,  look for the Monitor string

5) The Monitor data field should be clear as print monitors are not supported in a TS environment, if you see anything listed there, delete it.

For the print processor:

1) The printer should been connected at least once to the Terminal Server in order for it to show up in the list at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

2) Navigate to that key in the registry and locate the printer by name in the list

3) In the right hand pane you will see a series of settings,  look for the Print Processor string

4) The only supported Terminal Server print processor is the default,  WinPrint - if the driver you installed is using a different print processor,  replace it with WinPrint.

Once you’ve made these changes, test the printer to make certain it functions via TS.

In order for printers to be completely autodeleted from both the registry and Print Manager users may need Full Control over the following registry key and subkeys:-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Print

Users also need Change permissions to the following:

%systemroot%\system32\spool

Issue: When connecting to a Windows 2003 Terminal Server over RDP, some or all of your local printers (LPT or Parallel printers seem to always autocreate), ie USB, local TCP/IP printers don’t autocreate when logging on. Some of the multifunction devices and other USB printers use DOT4 printing which isn’t recognized by default by Windows Server.

Cause:This problem occurs because the printer port does not begin with COM, LPT, or USB. By default, printer port names that do not begin with COM, LPT, or USB are only redirected in Windows Server 2003. By default, multifunction print devices may not be redirected unless you are running Windows Server 2003 on your local computer because they use DOT4 ports.

Solution: To resolve this problem on a computer that is not running Windows Server 2003, force all ports (including DOT4) on the client computer to be filtered for redirection. To do this, open regedit and add a DWORD value named FilterQueueType to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns\RDPDR and set its value data to FFFFFFFF. Log on to the Terminal Server and all local printers should be redirected to the server. To make sure that printing works normally, install the same printer driver on the Terminal Server so that the printer is mapped to the right driver.

There is a way to use an .inf file to manage the mapping of printer drivers on Terminal Server (similar to how Citrix manages printer mapping).  To enable this feature, the following two registry keys need to be created:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd\PrinterMappingINFName
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd\PrinterMappingINFSection

Each of these is a string (REG_SZ) type.  The first refers to an inf file that you create and store in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\.  The value only needs to be the name of the file, not the entire path.  The second refers to the section within that file that will deal with the printer driver mapping (in the example below, “Printers”).  An example would look like this:

[Version]
Signature=”$Windows NT$”
;
[Printers]
;
; ***Client Driver Name***                        ***Server Driver Name***
;
“Brother HL-1250″   = “HP LaserJet 5

Microsoft Tech article on how to move Documents and Settings folder - link

Modify the following key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ProfilesDirectory

Microsoft Whitepaper to lock down a Terminal Server

How to lock down a Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Terminal Server session

Download and extract this registry modification and Merge it on the end users PC.  http://www.kazmarek.com/links/printer.zip

Or do it manually:

Follow these steps, and then quit Registry Editor: