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Adding Network Printers without User Interaction
The following MS Knowledge Base article may be of some help if you need to handle Windows 2000 clients:
How to Add Printers with No User Interaction in Windows 2000,
(
Microsoft KB 189105). It also
applies to Windows XP Professional clients. The ideas sketched out in this section are inspired by this
article, which describes a command-line method that can be applied to install network and local printers and
their drivers. This is most useful if integrated in Logon Scripts. You can see what options are available by
typing in the command prompt (
DOS box
):
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /?
A window pops up that shows you all of the command-line switches available. An extensive list of examples
is also provided. This is only for Windows 200x/XP; it does not work on Windows NT. Windows NT probably has
some other tools in the respective Resource Kit. Here is a suggestion about what a client logon script
might contain, with a short explanation of what the lines actually do (it works if 200x/XP Windows
clients access printers via Samba, and works for Windows-based print servers too):
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dn /n "\\cupsserver\infotec2105-IPDS" /q
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n "\\cupsserver\infotec2105-PS"
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /y /n "\\cupsserver\infotec2105-PS"
Here is a list of the used command-line parameters:
-
/dn
-
deletes a network printer.
-
/q
-
quiet modus.
-
/n
-
names a printer.
-
/in
-
adds a network printer connection.
-
/y
-
sets printer as default printer.
-
Line 1 deletes a possibly existing previous network printer
infotec2105-IPDS
(which had used native Windows drivers with LPRng that were removed from the server that was
converted to CUPS). The
/q
at the end prevents confirm
or error dialog boxes from popping up. They should not be presented to the user logging on.
-
Line 2 adds the new printer
infotec2105-PS
(which actually is the same
physical device but is now run by the new CUPS printing system and associated with the
CUPS/Adobe PS drivers). The printer and its driver must have been added to Samba prior to
the user logging in (e.g., by a procedure as discussed earlier in this chapter or by running
cupsaddsmb
). The driver is now autodownloaded to the client PC where the
user is about to log in.
-
Line 3 sets the default printer to this new network printer (there might be several other
printers installed with this same method, and some may be local as well, so we decide for a
default printer). The default printer selection may, of course, be different for different users.
The second line only works if the printer
infotec2105-PS
has an already working
print queue on the cupsserver and if the
printer drivers have been successfully uploaded
(via the
APW
,
smbclient/rpcclient
, or
cupsaddsmb
)
into the
[print$]
driver repository of Samba. Some Samba versions
prior to version 3.0 required a restart of smbd after the printer install and the driver upload;
otherwise the script (or any other client driver download) would fail.
Since there is no easy way to test for the existence of an installed network printer from the logon script,
do not bother checking. Just allow the de-installation/re-installation to occur every time a user logs in;
it's really quick anyway (1 to 2 seconds).
The additional benefits for this are:
Since network printers are installed per user, this much simplifies the process of keeping the installation
up to date. The few extra seconds at logon time will not really be noticeable. Printers can be centrally
added, changed, and deleted at will on the server with no user intervention required from the clients
(you just need to keep the logon scripts up to date).
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