Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

TP — Fri, 04 May 2007 01:39:11 GMT

Hi, comments on each change below:

Change#1: This is an excellent start. I would consider adding more options. For example, choose whether to redirect local, network, default plus maximum of n number of printers.

Change#2: In general I like this, however, I have two issues:

1. How will an admin troubleshoot printing issues with redirected printers if they are unable to see them?

2. The default ACL for autocreated printers *should* be configurable by the admin. This will facilitate special cases where autocreated printers should have different permissions than the default. For example, you may want normal users to have more rights than default to their own autocreated printers.

The current printer permissions model is inconsistent with the rest of windows, for example, what if there was no way to set the default NTFS permissions for subfolders and files that are created within a particular folder--that is the situation now with autocreated printers.

Change#4: The naming scheme should be configurable by the administrator. It is fine to simply make a registry value for this, so that way you would not need to write a UI.

For example, I would like the option to specify a naming scheme of %PRINTERNAME% %USERNAME% for those cases where legacy applications expect a consistent printer name. This ability has been requested many times in the newsgroups.

Of course when the above naming scheme is in use the restrict each user to a single session *may* be mandatory (not sure if it still will be given your switch to per-session printer visibility)

I think a REG_SZ value where we could specify the naming scheme would be nice, here are a few sample values:

%PRINTERNAME% %USERNAME%

%PRINTERNAME% (%SESSION_ID%)

%PRINTERNAME% on %CLIENTNAME% (%SESSION_ID%)

Not mentioned in this post, but what about configuring the maximum bandwidth consumed by printing? This is important in environments with limited bandwidth.

Thank you for all of your hard work!

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Zardosht Kasheff [MSFT] — Fri, 04 May 2007 01:46:36 GMT

TP, thanks for your feedback. The one question I can immedietely answer is "what about configuring the maximum bandwidth consumed by printing?"

Please look at http://blogs.msdn.com/ts/archive/2007/04/09/bandwidth-allocation-for-terminal-server-connections-over-rdp.aspx

Although the solution in that post is not perfect (printing bandwidth is lumped with all other redirections), this will hopefully be helpful.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

TP — Fri, 04 May 2007 03:42:29 GMT

You are welcome. Thanks for the link--I read that before.

The new bandwidth allocation will help in some scenarios, but [if I understand it correctly] will not help much in the case where the server's connection is limited.

For example, one user prints a large job and consumes a large percentage of available bandwidth on the server's side. It would be nice to limit the amount of bandwidth each user can consume with print data. If it would be easier for you to apply the limit to all non-video traffic then that would be acceptable.

Otherwise people need to purchase a packet shaping device or other bandwidth management software to limit each connection.

Does the above make sense, or is my understanding incorrect? I admit I have not tested the new allocation mechanism yet so I cannot speak with authority.

Thanks.

-TP

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Zardosht Kasheff [MSFT] — Fri, 04 May 2007 03:59:46 GMT

I dont understand why that solution would not work for you. You say it would be easier to "apply the limit to all non-video traffic". That is exactly what the solution does. FlowControlDisplayBandwidth is for video data, and FlowControlChannelBandwidth is all non-video data.

Say you set FlowControlChannelBandwidth to 10 and FlowControlDisplayBandwidth to 90. By doing this, a user's huge print job will take at most 10% of the bandwidth. That leaves 90% of the bandwidth available for display data. This seems to be the "limit to all non-video traffic" that you are looking for.

Why will this not work? What scenario fails? By the case "where the server's connection is limited", do you mean the server's bandwidth is limited?

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

TP — Fri, 04 May 2007 19:36:41 GMT

I said "*If* it would be easier for you..." as opposed to having granular limits for each virtual channel (printing, drives, etc.).

The solution may work--I have not tested it yet. I don't know the implementation details of the bandwidth allocation.

Is it per RDP connection or is it applied across ALL RDP connections?

For example, say you have a TS server behind a 1024Kbps Internet connection and 20 remote clients each with a 4-15Mbps (download) cable/FIOS Internet connection. One or two users print a large document concurrently.

How much bandwidth will be available for the remaining 18 users who are not printing? Will the server effectively limit the *total* server-wide printing bandwidth to 307Kbps (30% of 1024Kbps)?

Or will the server apply the bandwidth allocation only on an individual connection basis, in which case the two printing users could consume enough bandwidth to increase latency for *all* connected users.

Thanks.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Makarand [MSFT] — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:59:07 GMT

Is it per RDP connection or is it applied across ALL RDP connections?

[makarand] bandwidth distribution in TS is per connection, meaning distribute the bandwidth within a connection among various channels. so the solution we have does not address the scenario you mention. but I think its the stack beneath us that is responsible for the distribution between connections. the problem is similar to having two applications using the bandwith and the distribution between them.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Peter B. — Thu, 10 May 2007 21:41:26 GMT

All the limitations of EasyPrint are already addressed through 3rd party products like triCerat's ScrewDrivers. And those products aren't limited to Longhorn.

I wouldn't expect MS to add a ton of features to EasyPrint... that's outside their motive of creating it in the first place... a basic "fix"... not an enterprise printing solution.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Gaurav Daga [MSFT] — Tue, 15 May 2007 17:15:59 GMT

Peter, we would like to know from your testing of TS Easy Print, what are the limitations of the solution? The solution is still in beta and hopefully we can address those, if any.

Thank you.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Patrick Rouse — Tue, 15 May 2007 17:28:52 GMT

It would be easier for testing if we had a Vista and XP Pro client, as it's not very practical testing with LHS as the client.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Gaurav Daga [MSFT] — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:27:09 GMT

Other client support is in the works and will be announced when available, but the behavior of the feature is the same on all client platforms. We understand that using LHS as a client is not a real end user scenario, but it would be great if for early testing feedback, if you can use this platform and provide us input on the feature. Thanks.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Alexnaldo Santos — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:49:03 GMT

Hi,

Where I can read about RDP Protocol ? We need to write a Virtual Channel to record the session for future playback.( like an session_yyyy_mm_dd.avi )

Regards,

Alexnaldo Santos

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Gaurav Daga [MSFT] — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:28:37 GMT

MSDN - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa917490.aspx

Thanks

Gaurav

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Gaurav Daga [MSFT] — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:31:40 GMT

Correction - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383503.aspx

Thanks

Gaurav

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Frederic — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:28:54 GMT

Where I can read about RDP Protocol ? We need to write a Virtual Channel to record the session for future playback.( like an session_yyyy_mm_dd.avi )

you mean to offer the same function as Citrix does ?

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

同声传译 — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 07:05:06 GMT

I like Terminal Services in my daily work. That's useful.

Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 3

Terminal Services Team Blog — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:48:02 GMT

In Part 1 , we introduced the main benefits of Terminal Services (TS) Easy Print: a “driver-less” solution

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Andy — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:23:46 GMT

Easy Print looks interesting, but I'm trying to figure out whether it will help with my own situation:

I have printer which is a couple of years old, connected to my print/file server. There are various client PCs including a Windows Vista system.

My problem is that Windows Vista drivers are not available for my printer, so I can print from every computer except my Vista PC. This is irritating because every time I want to print a document (e.g. a Word document) I have to share it with (or otherwise copy it to) one of my Windows XP computers, then print it from there. This also means I have to install the relevant application on the XP machine.

I'm not using Terminal Services (I'm just using simple file and printer sharing) and I know that this isn't the scenario Easy Print is designed for, but it sounds as though it could solve my problem. Any comments?

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Eric Holk [MSFT] — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:43:27 GMT

Andy, as you said, Easy Print is not designed for your scenario. Easy Print is used only for redirecting printers over a remote desktop connection to a Windows 2008 Server. Regular file and print sharing does not use Easy Print at all.

Printing preview

Corrado — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:33:48 GMT

Hi all, this functionality is already implemented in Citrix client printer mapping, but one of problems is the printing "preview" on server side, this means that printing preview is made on client side ?

You may confirm that the printed document will be exactly as i see in the server side preview?

Thank you, i like Windows Terminal services!!!

Problems using Easy Print

Asger Hvam — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:37:00 GMT

When trying to RDP map a Brother HL-2140 the server responds "Unable to find driver. Please contact your administrator."

If I understand correctly the server should use the "Easy print" driver when the driver does not exist.

Can anyone help?

I'm using Windows 2008 RC1 as a server and another Windows 2008 RC1 as a client.

re: Problems using Easy Print

James — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:15:12 GMT

I have read that it requires RDP 6.1. I have looked for it and can not find RDP 6.1 is even released yet for XP or Vista.

More info found:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2436869&SiteID=17

I really wanted to test this too as it is a factor in upgrading to 2008 server.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Marc — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:26:12 GMT

I'm trying to give my RDP Clients only 1 option to print. I've set the GP for Redirect only Default Printer and Removed the "Add Printer" icon from the print dialogue box. How can I hide the Microsoft XPS Document Writer Printer from their view? I tried deleting just the printer and the driver as well as, deleting the printer and leaving the driver, but that leads to no print option at all. Also how can I remove the "Print to File" option on the print dialogue box as well?

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

yuval — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:14:37 GMT

i am having problem printing PCL file with

easy print env' (2008 ts, winxp sp3 .net 3.5,easy print enable client)

doe's anyone know if easy print support PCL

Printing ?

yuval.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Dave Ames — Wed, 21 May 2008 07:00:26 GMT

I would like to use TS Easy Print to redirect a print job and then save it as a file, such as PDF or XPS, or any other format. I have not been able to get the XPS printer to do this. Although it does say it is redirected, it wants to save the print job on the server, not the client.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

tim spero tim@timspero.com — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:10:40 GMT

we are having a problem printing to the non default printer on a xp sp3 .net 3.5 when the application knows the printer name.

.device ="printer (redirected 3)"

it will redirect to the default printer. if we use printer dialog to select it work fine

if client is xp sp2 and rdp 6 prints fine except no easy print

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Marc — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:12:33 GMT

I ran into an issue with HP LJ 2420 PCL 6. Printer is not redirecting, when I set their HP LJ 4200 PCL 6 as default, it works as it should. Seems to be an issue here, Client has xp sp3 and .NET 3.5.

TS EasyPrint (продолжаю разбирать вопросы)

Прошедшие встречи MCP клуба, Москва — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:15:59 GMT

Во время моего доклада “Безопасный удаленный доступ к приложениям” было задано несколько вопросов по...

TS EasyPrint (продолжаю разбирать вопросы)

Прошедшие встречи MCP клуба, Москва — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:31:03 GMT

Во время моего доклада “Безопасный удаленный доступ к приложениям” было задано несколько вопросов по...

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

PxPx — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:03:32 GMT

Hi,

I am using remoteapp for Microsoft Great Plains and CRM. I have an issue when trying to print. The last user who signs into the GP or CRM sets the default printer. So every single time a new user signs in they have to change the printer. The users local default printer is not being set as the default printer in the application its just using the printer of the last signed in user. How do I fix this.

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

Dan Stolts — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:16:54 GMT

Unable to see images... Looks like the link to your picture location is broken.

Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 3

Terminal Services Team Blog — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:56:31 GMT

[Part III in a series. Jump to Part I , Part II , Part III ] In Part 1 , we introduced the main benefits

Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 1

Terminal Services Team Blog — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:57:14 GMT

[Part I in a series. Jump to Part I , Part II , Part III ] Historically, printing redirection has been

re: Introducing Terminal Services Easy Print: Part 2

David Officer of Goldendale, WA — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:24:11 GMT

EDIT: I found the solution. I disabled in the Group Policy "Use Terminal Services Easy Print printer driver first" under

"Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Terminal Server\Printer Redirection". Now below problem is solved for ALL the client PCs trying to print to their local printer via TS.

ORIGINAL PROBLEM:

I have a workstation with windows xp servicepack 3 and .net 3.5. In the remote session all my redirected printers show up but when I try to print out of them, no page comes out of the printer with no error as well. However, the redirected printer HAD been working fine via TS a month ago. I don't know why it wont work now. I tried another computer (at home) with the same specs above and my redirected home printer wont print. Further exploration...no PC running RDC connecting to our Win Server 2008 64Bit via TS will successfully print via redirected printer. Yet...the macintosh's RDC 2.0 will print via TS redirected printer every time still to through this same server. I've upgraded to Win Serv '08 RC2. No help. Ran every update possible on the clients. No help. Checked the Group Policy, Easy Print is engaged and clients have no boxes checked for disabling printers, audio, etc.

I'm going to try disabling Easy Print, install the client printer driver on the server, and see how that goes. I tried with Easy Print ENABLED to do the above, but no help.