Active Directory and Printers

[Vimeous]

This is a "What have I missed?" question:

I have one AD with 2 subnets.
In subnet 1 I have a member server with all its printers set to list in the directory.
In subnet 2 I have a domain controller with all its printers set to list in the directory.

When adding a printer to PC's in subnet 1 I can only see the printers listed from the member server.
When adding a printer to PC's in subnet 2 I can see printers listed from both servers.

Why can't PC's in subnet 1 see printers listed in the directory from the domain controller in subnet 2?



For reference:
If you attempt to force a connection by specifying the printer:
\\<<domain controller name>>\
then the correct list of printers appears.
However it takes 5mins for the printer to be added.

Any ideas?

[Moby-Dick]

what OS is on the member server ?
what functional level is your domain ?

also try manually publishing the printers yourself.

1. Right-click the organizational unit in which you want to publish the printer, and choose New | Printer.
2. In the New Object-Printer dialog box, enter the UNC path to the print share.
3. Click OK to apply the change.

[TiG]

5 Minutes to add the printer to the machine is it installing the drivers from the AD. I have the same issue with some HP printers, Epsom one was fine but it appears to be the drivers that are huge/badly coded taking forever on slower work machines.

TiG

[badass]

Are you suing the Old NT styler print browser or are you using find in the directory?
If you aren't using the find in the directory, use it - its better, and that also means your problem is your WINS settings.

[Vimeous]

what OS is on the member server ?
what functional level is your domain ?

also try manually publishing the printers yourself.

1. Right-click the organizational unit in which you want to publish the printer, and choose New | Printer.
2. In the New Object-Printer dialog box, enter the UNC path to the print share.
3. Click OK to apply the change.

Member server - 2k3
Functional Level - 2k-mixed

I'll look at forcing them in as described this morning.

TiG - Hadn't considered that. The 2 subnets are at opposite ends of a VPN so it's quite possible. I'll see if Moby's sugestion changes the timings.

badass - I am using find in the directory so I'll be going back to look at WINS and see if that fixes the overall problem later.

Thanks to all. I'll be back ......

[Moby-Dick]

Functional Level - 2k-mixed

= FAIL !

you are effectively running an NT4 domain.

go 2k or 2k3 native - there's no reason not to unless you have NT4 PDC/BDC - you can still have NT4 member servers.

[badass]

= FAIL !

you are effectively running an NT4 domain.

go 2k or 2k3 native - there's no reason not to unless you have NT4 PDC/BDC - you can still have NT4 member servers.

QFT!

[Vimeous]

Sorry off-the-cuff that one (well it was 8am)

Functional Level - 2k-native

We don't have any NT4 servers etc. Sorry for the confusion.

[Moby-Dick]

phew

still ensure you have domain wide WINS resolution and try publishing the printers manually.

[badass]

I have come across an AD issue in the past when a server with loads of print queues was uncontactable by the PDC emulator for a few hours. It removed all of the printer records from AD. IIRC I switched off printer scavenging on that DC and using come CLI jiggery pokery, got the print server to re register all of its print queues.