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I have a GPO with printers mapped via the user preferences. Each printer needs to be item-level targeted only to computers in a specific IP range. I have a list of about 92 ranges that need to be added to a dozen or so printers.

The only way I know of to add an IP range is to do it through the GUI by clicking New Item -> IP address range, then type each of the start and end addresses of the range, then hit Item Options -> OR (default is AND), then hit OK... 1 range at a time... for 12 printers.

There's no way in hell I'm doing this by hand!

Is there a way to script this? Or at least add ranges in a batch?

Wes Sayeed
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  • Which Windows Server version? – Davidw Sep 30 '19 at 18:49
  • Policy is being edited from a Win10 box with RSAT tools, but the domain functional level is 2012R2. Not that it matters though. The GUI interface for this hasn't changed since Server 2003/XP that I'm aware of. – Wes Sayeed Sep 30 '19 at 18:54
  • I didn't really expect any difference there myself, I was more wondering about Powershell in this regard. So far, my explorations into Powershell's group policy cmdlet's isn't proving fruitful. – Davidw Sep 30 '19 at 19:07
  • I'm looking into Swisstone's answer now. After making the edits to the XML, the challenge will be getting Group Policy to "uptake" the changes. – Wes Sayeed Sep 30 '19 at 19:09
  • I do see that there's a copy paste option in the item level targeting window. *Edit, that doesn't seem to allow copy and paste between multiple printers.* – Davidw Sep 30 '19 at 19:12

1 Answers1

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I can only give you a partial answer:

The Preferences are XML files. You can find the corresponding file here: \\YOUR_DOMAIN\SYSVOL\DOMAIN_NAME\Policies\ID_OF_THE_GPO\Machine\Preferences\Printers\Printers.xml

and you'll find something like that: XML Definitions of a Printers GPP File

As you can see, the filters are in the <Filters> node: so, you can create them with a script/editor for example (I know that this is not necessarily the easyiest part...)

EDIT:

To update the GPO version in AD, I recommend that, once you did your modifications in the XML file: open the GPO, change and restore any setting in a user preference, and then close the Group Policy Editor. Thus, the AD will increment the version of the GPO and the clients will properly download the new version.

Swisstone
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