Malcom,
Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately the environment I work in is not
conducive to logic :) It's a local government and each department buys
their own printers. They are only supposed to do so after working with the
IT department to make sure it fits our environment, but often that doesn't
happen. But you are correct in that 3rd party products add complexity that
often isn't needed in a well planned (and controlled) environment. I am a
contractor/consultant at a local government with little ability to change
the way things are done, so I just try to work with what I have and make
changes/improvements where I can and warn them about the rest of it :)
The one thing I will say related to XPe vs PS4 is that I for one had a lot
less headaches with printing on XPe. Problems seemed to increase about
10-fold when CPSVC.EXE got installed.
-Mike
On 2/2/07, Malcolm Bruton <malcolm.bruton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Although I accept there are good reasons for choosing third party
> products to do this there are also valid reasons for not doing so. (mainly
> cost)
>
>
>
> I support 120 + servers with approx 45 print drivers installed and that
> is it. We have several thousand users and rely on client mapped printers.
> We don't use a third party solution. We are still on "old" technology with
> XPe and Windows 2000. We use UPD when we don't have the native driver
> installed (or mapped)
>
>
>
> We generally don't have any printer problems and the only real comment
> from people is that it can be slow. We know the speed is vastly better with
> PS4
>
>
>
> I do think sometimes we look at adding too many third party products
> which can over complicate a solution or potentially make up for something
> that wasn't properly thought through or designed correctly in the first
> place. Don't get me wrong. I know Citrix printing can be a pig but it can
> work too.
>
>
>
> Keep your driver list to a minimum. Don't let users or admins intall
> printer drivers. Use native drivers off the windows source media. Use
> printers form a reputable vendor. Create sensible mappings. Test your
> drivers before rolling them out.
>
>
>
> Malcolm
>
>
>
> *From:* thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On
> Behalf Of *Landin, Mark
> *Sent:* 02 February 2007 19:30
> *To:* thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [THIN] Re: Printer Hell
>
>
>
> I can do this online ... I'm not shy :)
>
>
>
> My true opinion is that this software saved my sanity, and it has paid
> for itself many times over during the 4 years I've been using it.
>
>
>
> I have no drivers (none, nada zip) loaded on any servers, except what
> comes with Windows 2003 itself. (I guess I could delete those too, if I
> wanted.) We probably have 50+ different printer models represented in our
> organization right now, not counting personal printers people might have at
> home, at the hotel, etc.
>
>
>
> It helped me by not having to keep track of printer drivers and
> versioning, diagnose blue screens, worry about what printers my users in Abu
> Dabai happen to pick up at the local flea market, or what kind of old
> Deskjet the CEO happens to have at home when he VPNs in. I don't have to
> worry about replicating drivers to all my servers, etc, or manage driver
> equivalency files, or worry about universal print drivers and what features
> they may have or not have.
>
>
>
> Based on that, it helped me by removing all these headaches from me, the
> other support staff, and most importantly, the users! Maximizing my
> happiness is secondary to maximizing theirs.
>
>
>
> If you still want more info, drop me a line on my email and we'll
> arrange something!
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On
> Behalf Of *Schneider, Chad M
> *Sent:* Friday, February 02, 2007 1:09 PM
> *To:* 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
> *Subject:* [THIN] Re: Printer Hell
>
> 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> 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] *On
> Behalf Of *George Yobst
> *Sent:* Friday, February 02, 2007 11:06 AM
> *To:* 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 > 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
> Oak Grove, OR 97267-4654 email: george.yobst@xxxxxxxxx
> "...it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn
> what he thinks he already knows." - Epictetus
>
>
>
