Mapping printers using Group Policy Preferences; works on Windows XP, not on Windows 7 x64

windows-7 group-policy print-server network-printer windows-server-2003-r2

25,617

OK I managed to get this working.

For Vista there is a Group Policy setting (more info here):

User Configuration/Policies/Admin Templates/Control Panel/Printers

Configuring the "Point and Print Restrictions" policy setting to "Disabled" will allow for silent printer driver installation, and thus allow the printer to be mapped successfully.

After struggling for the better part of this morning trying to figure out why this didn't work on Windows 7, I eventually discovered that Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 ignore this policy setting. There is an equivalent setting under:

Computer Configuration/Policies/Admin Templates/Printers

This is honoured by Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 See TechNet for more info.

25,617

ThatGraemeGuy

I'm a sysadmin by day & husband/dad by night and on weekends. I'm experienced with: MS Windows, including: Active Directory Exchange Server ISA Server SQL Server Linux, mostly Ubuntu currently but also Gentoo in the past and Slackware before that. FreeBSD, but that was probably too long ago to be useful now. Me @ Twitter

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

ThatGraemeGuy almost 2 years

I'm trying to use Group Policy Preferences to manage user connections to shared printers.

The print server is Windows Server 2003 R2 Std edition. Several printers are installed, and I've added x64 editions of all the drivers to the print server as well.

I've created a new GPO containing the printer preference settings. Printer mappings are targeted based on AD security group membership.

I log on to a Windows XP PC with the Group Policy CSEs installed and the printer maps perfectly.

I log on to a Windows 7 x64 PC and it doesn't map. If I manually connect to the shared printer, I get a prompt which asks me to confirm if I trust the server before installing the driver, and then it works perfectly.

I have domain admin rights and my UAC settings have not been changed from the default, i.e. UAC is enabled and the default level is selected.

Is the printer mapping failing because it's unable to prompt me to install the driver, or is there something else afoot?
- Admin over 14 years
  
  what exactly do you mean in '.. and my UAC settings are untouched' Have you disabled UAC?
- Admin over 14 years
  
  Perhaps a silly question, but are the 64 bit drivers installed on your print server?
- Admin over 14 years
  
  @Zoredache: yes, I said that in the question. I'll update the wording to make it clear.