Windows Server 2016 Remote Desktop Easy Print

"Easy print" yeah, right...

Posted by francis193

Hi all,

I have an easy print problem that hopefully you'll be able to answer because i don't know what else to try!

We have one user on windows 7 who wants to use their local printer to print whilst on server 2008. When she said this i didn't think this would be a problem, due to easy print. Well...

The printer isn't even showing up in devices and printers on the server. Have enabled .NET framework 3.5 SP1 on both client and server (although people say you don't need it if the client is on Win7) but it still isn't showing. Running a GP results wizard, easy print is enabled and the GPO 'Use Remote Desktop Easy Print printer driver first' is enabled but still the printer is not showing.

Hoping you all can help!

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Jake2418

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I had something like this not too long ago and I installed the printer driver on the server and then had to disable 'Use Remote Desktop Easy Print printer driver first'. That worked and we had a bunch of other sales people that use home printers and they still worked after the change as well. Not sure if that is the best solution but it was the only thing I could find that would work.

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22 Replies

i presume you have the RDP profile set to allow printer redirection?

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Ryan,

I don't know if this is exactly what you were looking for but, I had to remove the dotNET KB's listed in this article last night because of printing problems out of Terminal Services in Landscape mode. Reading deeper into this, it looks like there are several printing problems caused by these dotNET updates. Hopefully, it helps.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-025

Good Luck

Scott

EDIT: I received this from one of my main vendors late yesterday so I haven't had time to test it. I did remove the updates on that page.

I forgot to include this link to the known issues which describe the workaround to be to print to a pdf or xps file rather than to an actual printer until Microsoft resolves this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2671605

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Vee.Hexx: Yes, the profile is set up to allow printer redirection.

Scott: Thanks, will give this article a read in a bit. Not had chance to read it myself but it could have something to do with this, at least you managed to get easy print working though! Let me know how you get on when you do test it too, would be interesting to know the outcome.

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Thanks for the second link too, only just seen that.

Although it points out vulnerabilities and may be of good use to me later, now I cant even get easy print to show the printer in devices and printer, so cant even print anything off yet lol. Thanks anyway though, bound to run into more problems so it may prove handy!

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Just thinking out loud here, but when you said 'local printer' it got me to thinking - shared printer? I can tell you for sure that there is much grief here these days attempting to do that.

I have solved most of my printing problems by using only IP connected printers. When we moved to Server 2008, the old tricks didn't work as well with shared printers.

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Sorry should've been more specific, it's just a printer a user has plugged into their PC (via USB) so they can print confidential documents off there instead of the local shared printer. A Samsung CLP-310 to be precise. And it's listed on the local machine in devices and printers, you're able to print off it locally, but as soon as you log onto the TS it just disappears, just isn't getting mapped to the TS session

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Scott H wrote:

Just thinking out loud here, but when you said 'local printer' it got me to thinking - shared printer? I can tell you for sure that there is much grief here these days attempting to do that.

I have solved most of my printing problems by using only IP connected printers. When we moved to Server 2008, the old tricks didn't work as well with shared printers.

I'll second that option. Shared printers have always been troublesome. If you want to "share" a printer then (if possible) use a printer with a network card. Attempting to share a local workstation printer across the wire to a bunch of users is possible but not reliable.

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Hmmm. I'm not patronizing you here, but I would make sure that when you attempt to get that printer on the server you want to:

Make sure the server administrator has full permissions on the printer on the client computer

Install the printer on the server by browsing the Network, finding the shared printer and connecting to it that way

You may find that you need to give increased permissions to the server administrator on the spool folder on the client machine.

This is the only way I could get this work consistently in the past. I don't use this method anymore because if you get a stuck or failed job, you'll have to stop the spooler service on the server and client machine, clear the stuck job out of the spool folder and sometimes restart.

IP is the way to go.

Good Luck

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I've had limited success with easy print too on USB printers, Some work others don't. Where a user absolutely needs to print to a usb printer and not one of our network printers I just install the print driver for that particular printer on the terminal server(s). Cumbersome yes, but better than the bloody head prints on my desk trying to get "easy print" to work easily.

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Could be that the local printer is using host based drivers which wont work well with easy print. If thats the case, try using a universal driver just for terminal services, as that will typically bypass the host-based drivers which dont play nice.

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I remembered an old issue we had once with printing to a local printer via a remote desktop session. In order to get the printer working I had to add it to the server. That way the server had the printer drivers and could deal with the print outs. There was a great TechNet article describing the order Windows uses to build the print outs when remote desktopping. Can't locate the article right now but I'll post it if I find it later.

For now, if possible you may try going to the Windows 2008 server and adding a printer which uses the same driver that matches the local user's printer. Depending on the type of printer you may have to actually hook one up to the server with USB to get the driver to install.

Worth a shot, :) Good Luck.

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@ gruss Yes that looks like the way we'll have to go aswell, easy print just doesn't want to work, and there are more important things to contend with as she was a shared printer to print to anyway, just that she has a local printer on her desk plugged in via USB that she prints documents to.

@jonathan there is already a universal print driver installed on her local PC for this printer, remember doing this myself a while back.

@JustSayin please do post if you find it, might be a massive help

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Oh, and all of our printers are IP, it's just this one printer the user has bought in from home she has on her desk that she wants to print to.

Can't even imagine how much bother it would be if the printers weren't IP!

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I've had this issue on one of our clients networks - with around 15 users each with a USB printer plugged into their local machine, using Terminal Services to print back to their local printer. You can imagine the fun i had.

The fix is as follows:
- Open Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration, and disable the use of temporary folders per session
- From the users local machine, share the printer on the network with appropriate security permissions
- Logon to the TS
- Navigate to the local machine from the server (using \\computername)
- Connect to the printer
- Print!
This is the best solution I came up with, and is working for all 15 of my clients machines through Terminal Services.

The only other problem you might encounter, when the user logs off and logs back on - it may show as limited access and you might not have permission. If this happens - let me know, there's a fix for that as well!

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@jc505uk i tried your fix, didn't work. The user's local machines are not joined to the domain as they are remote users so just got them all up and running on the terminal server. Because they're not joined to the domain i cant browse to their local machine.

Do you think that because their local machines aren't joined, that any printers connected locally won't map when connected on the TS? This may be the cause, but i doubt it as when the user was on server 2003 they were able to use their printer fine, but we used tricerat screwdrivers whilst on server 2003, but they dont do a compatible 64bit server 2008 version that works on our server!

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Ryan,

If you're dealing with a remote user and you want to connect to a share, the most painless ways is to go to:

Start, run or if in the case of Vista and above, go to the search line and enter

\\<ipaddressofmachine>

you should see the share and be able to connect to the printer from there. One of the limitations of remote access is poor name resolution especially when it comes to windows networking.

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I had something like this not too long ago and I installed the printer driver on the server and then had to disable 'Use Remote Desktop Easy Print printer driver first'. That worked and we had a bunch of other sales people that use home printers and they still worked after the change as well. Not sure if that is the best solution but it was the only thing I could find that would work.

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Is the server os 64bit?

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Is it just a regular server or does it have Terminal Services installed (Remote Desktop Services now) EasyPrint is not so easy unless RDS role is installed.

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Sorry bout reply, yes Bill the Server is 64bit.

But we managed to get it working! Had been messing around with GP alot recently locking down workstations etc whilst moving to the new server and must have accidently turned off one that had something to do with easy print (cant remember the exact one that it's called now)

Thanks for all the suggestions!

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Ryan - all the machines in my case weren't on the domain either - but you can still share printers on the workgroup. When you connect to the printer from the TS you'll need to enter the credentials for that machine, that's all.

What's the problem with the method i provided, where isn't it working? How did you get it fixed in the end?

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