Mapping Client Network Printers
If anyone is wondering why clients network printers wont map across on Windows Terminal Server 2003 it is normally due to the following reasons:
1) The driver must be installed onto both the clients workstation and the terminal server itself. The drivers must have exactly the same name or else this will not work. This can be tricky beause often the Server 2003 and XP/2000 drivers have a totally different name.
For example I was trying to setup a HP Laser 5M, the XP driver display name was “HP LaserJet 5M” and the Server 2003 copy was called “Hewlett Packard LaserJet 5M”. There was a difference and therefore it was not working.
The only easy way round this is to create file called printsubs.inf. This file tells the server which client drivers to match up with it’s own server version of the driver. This method also means that you can support a whole lot of different print drivers while only having a couple of generic ones installed on the terminal server.
To create a mapping file in Windows 2003, you must add two registry values:
Key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd
Type: REG_SZ
Value: PrinterMappingINFName
Data: Name of the .INF file that contains printer driver name mappings. (For example, c:\winnt\inf\printsubs.inf)
Key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd
Type: REG_SZ
Value: PrinterMappingINFSection
Data: Name of the section in the .INF file that contains the actual mappings. (For example: Printers)
Once you’ve finished adding your registry entries you should restart the spooler service or reboot the Terminal Server to allow these changes to take effect. After you add the new registry values, you’ll need to create an .INF file that includes the driver names you want to use for client-side to server-side mappings. You file will look something like this:
;This file contains Mappings for Client driver to Server driver printer connections
[Printers]
;”Client Printer Driver Name” = ” Server Printer Drive Name”
“Hewlett Packard LaserJet 5P” = “HP LaserJet 5P”
If your .INF mapping file contains any syntax errors (other than a misspelled driver name inside the quotes), you may receive the following messages in the event log:
Event 1110: “Error processing ntprint.inf. If the file on the system is corrupt, you can restore it from the installation media.
2) You don’t have the latest version of the RDP client installed downloadable from www.microsoft.com. This fixes a whole lot of problems to do with client drive and printer mappings.
3) Inside the terminal services configuration applet under the “Client Settings” tab you have “Disable the Following” / Printing ticked.
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