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There are approx 15 User profiles on a Windows XP workstation.

I want to install some network printers to all User profiles. I installed some to the local administrator account thinking I was installing them for all users.

That is not the case, it looks like printers must be installed to each profile individually.

Anyone know of a way to install printers to all user profiles instead of each individually?

Thanks.

CT.
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2 Answers2

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There are various "hacks" that can be used to populate "network" printers as "local" printers on client computers (using a "Local Port", pointing the client directly at the print device, running an LPR queue on a server and pointing clients at that). I'd recommend none of those because the ongoing maintenance is a real pain.

Assuming you have an Active Directory domain you can use Group Policy to deploy printers. This gives you a nice way to make changes, down the road, when (inevitably) you have to add / move / change printers.

If you don't have an AD domain I'd consider writing a script to "connect" to the printers and putting that script into the All Users "Startup" folder of the Start Menu. The gist of a such a script would be something like:

Option Explicit

Dim objNetwork
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network") 

objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\server\printer-share-name"
... continue ad infinitum ...

You can also use such a script to remove "stale" printers later when (inevitably) you add / move / change printers.

Evan Anderson
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As far as I know, printer installed by one user will be available to all users who are in the local administrators group. Granted you may not want everyone to be in the local administrators group so you can try using the Power Users group instead. If you don't want everyone to be in the Power Users group then you'll have to resort to some type of "hack" as Evan has stated.

On a side note, if you create a default user profile with the applicable printers installed, those prinnters will be available to every new user profile that's created.

joeqwerty
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  • Locally-installed printers (that is, queued by the local computer) will be available to any interactive user. Only members of the "Administrators" group can install locally printers by default. Using the "Point and Print" functionality places the "connection" to the printer into HKEY_CURRENT_USER, making such "connections" per-user. – Evan Anderson Jun 30 '10 at 20:39