I'm very new to Group Policies but have been trying to make our offices printers accessible to everyone on our domain. As I understand it, there's 3 ways to do this with Group Policies:
- Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Printers (and add the printers manually by IP, which seems there's no real point in setting up a print server?)
- User Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Printers (and add the printers by the shared path that was setup in the print server)
- Deploy the printer to a GPO directly from the Print Server context menu
I've tried all the methods on a blank/new Group Policy and only 2 & 3 result in the printer being automatically listed and accessible on the client machines (despite the fact I can't find any reference to a printer in the GPO when performing method 3).
I'm under the impression that it is best to deploy printers per machine where possible and that doing so via GPP is preferential to the deploy printers (method 3) as it gives you slightly more control. Is this the case and if so, is there anything special you need to do using method 1 to add the printers for the users?
(FYI, running Windows Server 2016 and Windows 7 clients)
Best Answer
You are heading towards the right and clean way. In my experience, this solution great with few issues. I can help with troubleshooting but let's first get you going - I bet you will be golden after the following steps...
Go to Printer Manger in Administrative Tools.
1b. You can also search "Printer Manager." 1c. If you cannot find, please go to server manager and add the feature.
Once you are in Print Manager, click, on Print Servers.
:-)
Cheers, Rob