[THIN] Re: Printer Hell

  • From: "Schneider, Chad M" <CMSchneider@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 13:08:56 -0600

I am investigating this....can you let me know your true opinion, offline?

 

How it helped you, how many printers you have, drivers you had in the farm,
versus how many you have now?

 

  _____  

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Landin, Mark
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 12:59 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Printer Hell

 

I'm using Simplify Printing (standalone, not their suite). It's been heaven,
comparatively.

 

  _____  

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Mike MacDonald
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 12:52 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Printer Hell

We might be to that point. Although with 22 published desktop servers and 9
published app servers and the licensing on those done per sever....it gets
expensive fast. That being said, it may be well worth it when it comes to
TCO. Just curious, which 3rd party solution are you using? 

 

-Mike

 

On 2/2/07, Landin, Mark <Mark.Landin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:Mark.Landin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote: 

I have three words for anyone in "printer hell":

 

third

party 

printing

 

Nothing is perfect, but I've run a 100-user farm for three years, with
international and mobile users, and have not had to spend any time
diagnosing or fighting printer problems. 

 

You don't have to live this madness. Please, friends, I hate to see you
suffer needlessly!

 

 

 

  _____  

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>  [mailto:
<mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>  thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
George Yobst
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 11:06 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Subject: [THIN] Re: Printer Hell

 

Hi Mike,

I'm still going thru printer hell as well, and have tracked one problem

down to a Policy change in the CMC (and I didn't do it), so check that.

For some unknown reason, the printer in the OU group it was assigned

to got changed to the next group down the list (no way I would have done
it).

Printer issues seem to be almost monopilizing my time lately, so good luck!

-George

 

On 2/2/07, Mike MacDonald <mike5287@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:mike5287@xxxxxxxxx>  >
wrote: 

I know I am not the first one here to be in printer hell, but recently
things have taken a turn for the worse. Something changed that caused
drivers to get loaded on our W2K/PS4 servers from clients. This even though
driver installation was restricted to administrators, only allowed from a
single trusted source and our PS4 policies said that client printers would
only use native drivers if they were available.  Long story short is all of
a sudden drivers started installing - we got up to 135 drivers on each of
the 20 servers in the farm. Along with the high number of drivers we started
having frequent spool service/Citrix Print service hangs or crashes which
has resulted in logon delays as printers try to get connected at logon. 

 

Currently I am going through each server and eliminating unneeded drivers. I
was able to go from 135 down to 53 drivers per server. Still too many, but
there are that many different models of network printers here. I also
renamed the ntprint.inf to make sure no additional drivers got installed
without me putting them there. After I get rid of the extra drivers I am
going to go through the remaining drivers on the print server and the Citrix
servers to make sure they are compatible. If they are not I will change the
driver used for the device to one that is compatible. 

 

One last bit of background is that we use a mix of client printers and
network printers that logon scripts connect users to at logon and most users
connect to a published desktop from thin-clients or via the Web Interface. 

 

I guess I am looking for any suggestions on how to get out of printer hell.
I am ready to build new servers running W2K3/PS4 but don't want to move the
same problems forward to the new servers. I also feel I must be doing
something wrong related to the Citrix Print Service because I can restart it
and the spool service then instantly try to stop it and it won't stop  - has
to be killed. Is there something else I should be doing or has anyone had
similair issues, and what was done to correct the problems. I am going to go
through cleaning up drivers as mentioned, but if I need to do something else
I am all ears! 

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or assistance!

 

-Mike MacDonald




-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Yobst, Library Technology Analyst        phone: 503.723.4890 
Library Information Network of Clackamas County   fax: 503.794.8238
16239 SE McLoughlin Blvd, Suite 208         web: http://www.lincc.lib.or.us
<http://www.lincc.lib.or.us/> 
Oak Grove, OR 97267-4654                  email: george.yobst@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:george.yobst@xxxxxxxxx> 
"...it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn
what he thinks he already knows."  - Epictetus 

 

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