I'd really appreciate some help here. Network printing has always annoyed me. Here's the situation:

I'm dealing with a computer lab. The users of this lab have logins and there's a print server that handles the active directory stuff. That server also tracks the number of pages printed by those users.

The computer lab has one printer, and that's the one all the students print to. My basic question is: how do I make this printer show up on the computers no matter who is logged on?

In my experience (and in this case), an installed network printer only shows up for the current user and no others, and I've never known a way around that. Is it possible?

That's funny, In my experience, I've found it to be just the opposite: When you install a printer in Windows, it's available to all users of that machine.

The opposite situation, the one you describe, doesn't seem like the logical way to design an operating system, for precisely the reason you state. I'm wondering if there's something about the way the lab is set up, something nonstandard, that's causing your problem?

I've found that physically connected printers show up for all users, but networked ones don't. That's been the case at the last couple places I worked at as well.

Hm. It might be a permissions thing, where you specifically have to set it to "all users" after you install it.

I'm assuming Windows.

You have to install it for the "Default User".

Here are instructions for XP.

Create a bogus user. Log in as that user. Create the printers for that user. Log out. Log in as an administrator. Change your folder options to show hidden files and folders and not to hide protected OS files. Bring up the "System" control panel. Select the Advanced tab and click the User Profiles settings button. Select the bogus user and click "Copy To". Under "Copy Profile To" enter or browse to "c:\Documents and Settings\Default User". Click OK and back out of the control panel. Reset the folder options if you want. You probably want to delete the bogus user and his profile (same control panel page to delete profiles).

Now users that don't already have a profile on the computer will get the Default User profile when they log in for the first time. Existing users can have their profiles deleted and recreated when they log in next. Or you can just fix them manually.

You can set other default stuff this way, too.

Pain in the ass, huh?

In the old days, I'd map the printer in a login script. Not sure how that works in Active Directory. As you can see...I'm way behind the times on my server admin knowledge.

I thought about that "Default User" solution, and that, agreed, seems like way too much work. I'm seeing stuff on the web about running login scripts that call out to printui.dll, and that also seems like way too much work. There's gotta be a simpler way!

Is there a way to do it with group policy?

Maybe. That's the only reliable way I found. (I've always had bad luck with policies, but, despite having to deal with it, I don't consider myself a Windows admin, either.)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307016

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/252388

?

That's just awful. Ick.

Ugh. Thanks for that, and I think that's going to be the way I have to go about it. Unfortunately this has to be done for 12 machines, so it's going to take a while. But hey, they're paying me by the hour!

ps-yes, this is for Windows, and the lab is split between XP and Vista machines. Hopefully the process is similar, but I'd bet it isn't...

If you've got a domain going, why aren't you mapping the printer with a login script? AFAIK that's the standard way to do it. It Works Just Fine here at work. I can find the login script for you if you'd like, but it's essentially "net use \\pathto\printer".

(I thought that's what one of those MSKB articles I linked above says to do, but now I see it's more complicated than that). I think it sucks that you'd have to do that at all, but whatever. By the way, I think that the NET USE command is only part of the equation, that allows you to use the printer but doesn't necessarily install the driver and set it to be the default printer. That's what the printUI.dll command is for. (if I'm understanding correctly.)

That would be fine with me. I think it wasn't done that way because whoever set up this network only wanted that printer installed for users when they logged onto those specific computers. That would make sense, but they only use their logins to log into those computers anyway, so it won't make a lot of difference.

I'm not familiar with login scripts, though. I'd appreciate more information. And is Tony correct, will that script not actually install the printer driver?

The problem is that a login script is associated with a user, not a computer. Given that you're dealing with printers, it makes more sense to have them be specific to computers, since, I'm sure, you're interested in proximity.

...as are printers, which is the original problem. Windows really needs a "Make this printer available to all users of this computer" checkbox. The problem with that is that the remote printer is secured by user credentials, not computer credentials, meaning that you could potentially have a default printer that you don't have permission to print to. Confusing.

There's probably a sensible solution. I wonder if anything in Windows 7 has changed this? I've not had a chance to play with it yet...

Then, instead of a logon script, make it a batch file. Place the batch file in the following folder:

C:\documents and settings\All users\start menu\programs\startup

Then the batch file will run for every single user that logs onto that particular machine.

If you want a printer to appear for all users just install it as a local printer. Not ideal but it works. BTW Vista breaks login scripts that setup network printers, you have to use the Group Policy Network Printers object for Vista which means you have to upgrade your Domain Schema to support this.

Well, printers are associated with user profiles, which is slightly different than being associated with a user. Since established users logging into a particular computer for the first time get that computer's default user profile, that's closer to being associated with a computer than a user.

Of course, this is ignoring roaming user profiles. I don't honestly know if that's still supported.

Would this help any?

On all the machines at work, the admins have made sure there is a link to the "Find Printers" dialog in the start menu. From there, users are on their own in deciding which printer(s) to use. Literally dozens spread over several buildings.

I'd be willing to try this too. It sounds like a good solution to me that allows me to choose which computers get the printer.

I don't really care what method I use, I'm just hoping for one that works. Reading back on this thread, I see a lot of good ideas, but is there a consensus on what would be the best way to accomplish it?

This isn't a very acceptable option to the people I'm doing the work for. At the moment there's instructions littered around the room on how to install the printer, and this would just be making that digital. They really want it so that the students don't have to think about it.

Both these methods work (they're the same approach). I started on two computers with this method, and curiously when I did a test logon with one of the student accounts, I started getting script errors. This indicated to me that there actually was a script set up to install the printers.

So I found the script, and edited it to change it to the new printer name. It worked!!

But I have urgent help needed (I'm at the place right now and I need to fix this today). The script works on all the XP machines in this lab, but unfortunately it does not work on the newer Vista machines (I get the same script errors as before, claiming the printer doesn't exist). Research didn't come up with much, but I've concluded something: it has nothing to do with Vista and everything to do with when these newer, faster machines are running the scripts. The script fails at logon (before the desktop even shows), but if I run the same script once everything has loaded, the printer installs perfectly.

How do I fix this? Is there a way to delay the script?

I found a site where it explains how you can get a script to sleep for X seconds. Is that something you can use?

Stig

At my office we use printers connected by ip address, so no need to log into the other winders machines. What I dislike is that the XP and Vista machines will search other 'puters on the network and install any printers found on other machines automatically. So, each machine will have it's own connection to the tcp/ip printer, and connections to that same printer on every other computer also set up to use it. They also like to change the the default printer to use one of these other connections, and for some reason they seem to favor the ones on my 'puter. I haven't yet found a way to turn this annoying behaviour off...

is there anyway to network a printer using my existing wireless router? (it doesn't have any USB ports, so I assume not)

And from that statement, I assume it's a USB-only printer and does not already have a network port? (Because if it did you would have already plugged it in, gotten it to work, and not be asking these questions.) Yes, you have options.

Here are your options, in the order of easiest/most succesful, to hardest/least successful.

1. Simply buy another printer with the networking feature or with the wireless networking feature built-in. I did that recently, and it was dirt-cheap. I got a "Brother" brand laser printer which has a 100 percent uptime, stays on the network, and goes into silent powersave sleep mode when it's not printing anything. I actually keep the printer in my recording studio, and it doesn't make a sound until I ask it to print something on the network. Super easy to set up, very cheap, works like a charm.

2. If your printer has an add-on option for networking, such as a card that plugs into the printer (many printers have this option), definitely buy that option. It might cost nearly as much as (1) above, but it will be easy to set up.

3. There are little boxes you can buy at office supply stores that have a USB port on one side and a LAN port on the other side. You can also buy full network hubs/routers that have an extra USB port for adding a printer. All these products are designed to solve the very problem that you're describing: They allow you to network a USB-only printer. However, I have used one before and it was TERRIBLE. It was one of the cheap brands like Netgear or D-link. I could get it working (after much fuss) and it would work for a while, but if the upstream network router got rebooted (after a power outage for example), the printer box would stop talking to the router and I would have to reboot it by hand. When the time came to actually print something across the network, i.e., when I needed it, it was never functioning.

Now, number (3) above might be the right solution for you (if they've improved the technology or if you happen to find a good one), I'm just warning you that there's a good chance you might have my negative experience if you try the same route.

Or, if you're wanting to network the printer so that you can access it from multiple computers, just attach it to one, share the printer from that computer, and add it on the other. It's pretty straightforward.

That said, I've had good luck with Axis print servers in the past.

Those print servers are awful. Ugh. Also, we don't know what kind of printer he has. If it's a multi-funtion, there are much fewer print servers that will work with them.

I think option #1 is the way to go. Currently, my method of printer sharing is by plugging my standard USB laser printer into my Airport Extreme and putting Bonjour on all the Windows computers in the house. It doesn't work great, but hey, printers are annoying.

*facepalm*

Of course. Yeah, that should have been option zero on my list above. I have tunnel vision because I don't like having a printer depend on a computer for its uptime, so I never use that solution if I can help it.

That's good to know. So none of the problems I was describing with the netgear/d-link boxes, then.

I've used a D-Link box without issues. Crappy web interface for setup, but at least it *has* a web interface!

Worked fine other than that with our Lexmark laser printer. A buddy of mine also has one, and uses it (printing only) with an HP multifunction box, in a win xp/vista setup.

Cheers

I've honestly not used one since USB printers became commonplace, but the ones I used with parallel printers worked without a hitch, from $1000 enterprise ones to $50 plug-directly-onto-the-centronics-connector ones.

You can pick up a small print server from about $30 and up (here's an example of a DLink device at Amazon)

YMMV, so read the reviews. The benefit is that it doesn't require any one machine to be on to host the printer.

I used to have a 2x parallel + 1x USB D-Link print server. It worked okay until one day it just mysteriously died. It worked fine though until then.

Those are the devices that Tony was talking about. It's also the kind of device I was talking about that might not work with your printer, so it's good to check the compatibility on DLink's site first.

And like I said, multifunction printers rarely work with these types of devices, and if they do, most of the time it's printing only, so you should watch out for that.

I would agree with Tony's train of thought, though. If you want to spend zero money, share the printer. If you want to spend ANY money, just get a new printer with wireless built in.

thanks for the advice...i should have posted this earlier...i got the HP c4480 printer as a Christmas gift and thought I was going to exchange it (and pay the $50 difference)for the HP c4580 because the 4580 had wireless networking capabilities. However, after reading the many negative reviews on the 4580 and saw the print serve option, i decided against it. now after reading what you wrote, i regret it....maybe I can get Best Buy to still exchange my printer.....

Well, you could always sell your current HP and get another one with an Ethernet jack. The money you lose on the trade-up (minus the savings on not getting a USB/Ethernet printer adapter) is made-up by the fact that network sharing works much better.

(My take: I got a cheap color laser printer from Costco -- a Xerox Phaser 6110. Two years ago, it cost $180, and it has a nice Ethernet jack on the back. Now, two years later, the only thing I've had to do is replace the black toner cartridge, $60 for an official Xerox-branded version or half of that for a knock-off. Color laser, at home, is pretty sweet. I don't often find myself wanting or needing the other functions of a multifunction. I can always go to the office where we've got a fax machine, a scanner, and so forth.)

Arrrrgh, printers are such a racket. Many times it costs as much to replace the required toner or ink as it does to buy a new printer.

The replacement for the Xerox Phaser 6110 is the 6130 and it's $500 at Costco in Canada right now. Toner costs $95 for each of the 3 required colors, plus $92 for black. You'll get up to 1900 pages for the colours at 5% coverage and 2500 with the black. So that means if you're printing mainly colour text you can expect up to around 2000 pages for $377 in consumables. Every printer model they make uses a completely different toner cartridge assembly.

The printer claims it can handle a cycle of 40000 pages per month. I'm sure Xerox would love you at those volumes. That would cost over $7000 per month in consumables. More like $100k if you were printing full-page pictures though.

My parents need a new printer to replace the POS Epson I bought for them a few years ago. It must not be an Epson and it must not be an Ink Jet. Those are all designed to fail within 2 years. They're the equivalent of a Bic pen in purpose, though not as well built nor as long-lived.

They really want the ability to copy as well, but that's about the extent of the multi-functional requirements. I really want to set them up with Black and White only. There's absolutely no way to financially justify the expense of a colour printer of any make/model for the home. It's much cheaper and less hassle to have images professionally printed.

I'd like to find something with an easy to get toner cartridge that won't cost an arm and a leg and that has decent (high-ish) yield. The printer should hold at least 200 sheets of paper in an enclosed (but easy to reload) paper tray.

Any recommendations?

Perfect example of consumables costing more than the printer:

http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx...g=en-CA&s=1

Brother MFC-7440N multi-function. Even at its non-rebate price of $289, it's cheaper to buy a new unit than it is to buy a new drum ($294) and toner ($200).

If anyone is considering this thing, might as well just buy multiples with the rebate for $179. Then you can resell the toner (low yield at $140 for 1000 pages) and drums for profit. Or keep them. Though $179 is still going to be the most expensive 1000 pages you've ever printed in black and white.

I suppose you could always resell the printers at $50 and drums at $130 on their own to break even on toner use. You know, to another sucker.

So you want a laser printer. Any other technology is going to cost you a fortune, no to mention that no one makes a B&W printer other than inkjet or laser. (Well, unless you want to buy a phototypesetter, assuming anyone still makes those.) If you want to look, though, Xerox makes some relatively inexpensive solid-ink printers.

Xerox's solid ink seems to cost quite a lot. I could understand if it were made with precious metals of course.

I don't have high hopes for finding anything that will take care of the copying aspect, so I might as well get to looking at older laser printers like the 4L from HP. And perhaps get them one of these more disposable POS or a lower priced copier for copy duty (won't even hook it up to the computer).

I'm using a Lexmark Optra Lxn+ myself. A workhorse, but sadly no longer the fastest kid on the block with only 64MB of memory and 16ppm top speed. It needs some cleaning that I've been putting off though, because I seem to have to pop out and then pop back in its paper tray a few times when printing more than a handful of pages at a time. Kind of defeats the purpose of a 500 sheet tray.

Ricoh seems to do the best with supply costs, but you don't get a discount on the printer itself.

Also, keep in mind that many of these printers arrive with their toner / ink cartridges half full. Replacing the old printer with a new one, just to get an ink refill, doesn't necessarily make good sense.

Amusement: despite claiming it was out of black toner, the pages were coming out of my printer as black as ever. I was waiting for it to truly run out of toner, but the printer eventually refused to go on, without giving any explicit status message to that effect, beyond the red lights that I had been happily ignoring for weeks.

Anyway, for low-volume printing, such as my own use, I don't think cost-per-page is the right metric. What really matters is dollars per year to keep the thing going. I spent $180, up front, on the laser printer and now, two years later, I spent $60 for a new black toner cartridge (which is actually full, unlike the old one which is shipped half-empty from the factory). I figure I'll get another two years out of it before a lightning strike or some other calamity takes it down for good.

At that point, I won't feel so bad about the costs.

Boy, this this thread brings back memories.

I still highly recommend Kyocera B&W laser printers. They are more expensive up front, but the cost per copy savings will pay for the printer.

As for your statement "There's absolutely no way to financially justify the expense of a colour printer of any make/model for the home" I beg to differ. I have been absolutely delighted with my Samsung CLP-300 color laser printer. You can buy one from Amazon for less than $175 including shipping, and a 2000 page four-color toner kit goes for less than $40 again including shipping. That's less than two cents per page. No, the print quality is not as good as a dedicated photo printer on special 15 cents a sheet paper, but it is more than adequate for home use as shown by this scanned in image from the printer.

Reviews I have read on the printer suggest that it is not robust, and that anybody thinking they will get the claimed 24,000+ page monthly duty cycle is living in a dream world. But for folks like me who print maybe 20 pages on a busy day, it's hard to beat.

And, BTW, if you shop around, it is easy to find the printer for less than $100 but you'll usually pay $25 or so in shipping. Toner is readily available, but $40 delivered seems to be the sweet spot in the price spectrum right now.

tanstaafl.

It's good to point out that it's easy to print with exclusively black toner with a color laser printer. And, unlike inkjets, the color pigment won't evaporate.

Also, worth noting that the Samsung CLP-300 and the Xerox 6110 are identical to one another. Some variations have Ethernet and others don't, but otherwise looks like we're both quite happy.

I work for Ricoh so....

Don't forget other consumables when figuring out your cost per page. The Ricoh C400DN for instance has toner cartridges that only have toner so there are separate photo conductor units you have to replace at some point there is also a image transfer belt and fuser that are consumables. I don't know what the actual cost per page is if you include all these items but I deal with many people that are surprised when they find out about this stuff later.

Fortunatly for me most of our customers have supply inclusive service contracts so all the consumable items are covered under that and they just pay per page.

Also even with laser printers the supplies do go bad just sitting unused not as fast as ink jets but it still happens.

I'm a huge Samsung printer fan. I have one of their lowest-end laser printers, and I've been using it for at least two years, and it replaced another one of their lowest-end printers that lasted me plenty of time too. They perform solidly, and the printer driver is lightweight.

I will never again recommend an HP printer. I think their hardware is pretty darn good, but their software is an utter failure. I haven't seen a model yet - multifuntion or otherwise - that didn't require a 15 minute-long software installation. That's absurd. Even if they do feel the need to install a bunch of photo software or something on your machine, it shouldn't take as long as it does.

In the past week alone, I've seen three instances where someone's HP printer install got screwed up, resulting in second copies of their printers. The problem is some programs will still print to the first copy, which the computer thinks is offline. The only solution when this happens is to go through a painful uninstall of their horrid software, and reinstall it all over again. Ugh.

Much simpler on Linux with the HP MFCs. They just work, like they're supposed to.

Cheers

Same on OS X too. Plug it in, or find it on the network automatically. I think maybe once I looked at the setup webpage for my printer, just for fun. And the MFC HP printer a family member has was also just a simple plug and play operation. Clicking the scan button brings up Image Capture and everything.

I guess all the good software engineers at HP are on the Unix side, leaving the Windows dev to people who like making bloated software or something.

I've always just plugged in HP printers and used whatever the default driver was in Windows. Always worked fine for me...

You can't do that if you want to use the scanner, fax, etc. on a multifunction printer.

My HPs are all set up as Deskjet500. Can't wait 'till the last of the HPs dies off and I can go all Oki. Even the best of the Laserjets (3, 4), required constant fiddling.

Dignan included printer only devices. I expect to install drivers or software for a MFD.

i have a Samsung CLP-510N... it came with stock cartridges... they are only half full with toner... yesterday i just refilled them to full.. This will give me around 7000 pages at 5% coverage.. the refill kit even included new chips, a pair of gloves for each colour.. and the toner came in bottles that fitted right on the cartridge.. price 180$ (1495 danish kroner/DKK) so that gives me 0.02$ a print

but yeah, i will have to replace the transferbelt and drum... what is the fuser? the thing that's hot?

Yes

True, I should have limited that statement to MFP's. I guess the feeling comes from supporting HP printers in the average user's home, where almost nobody has an HP printer-only anymore.