We have school labs with Windows XP Professional PCs that are used by many students throughout the year. Each PC accumulates dozens of user accounts as different students log in.

Occasionally, we need to add a new network printer to all XP PCs in a particular lab. We currently do this on each PC in the lab via the following procedure:

1. Log in as Administrator.
2. Select all of the student user accounts (in Windows Explorer) and delete them.
3. Log in as a test user.
4. Add the network printer to the test user account.
5. Copy the test user account over as the Default User account.
6. Students log in, and their newly-created user account acquires the new network printer (from the Default User account).

We need to speed this up. The slowest part is Step #2: deleting all the student user accounts on each XP PC. This can take 20-30 minutes for each PC, and may take a few hours to do all of the PCs in one lab (even if we have all PCs running at the same time).

My questions:

- Do we have to delete all existing student user accounts on each PC?

- If existing user accounts do *not* have to be deleted, how do you make the new network printer available to all users? Can we log in as Administrator, add the new network printer, and somehow apply it to all existing user accounts?

- If existing user accounts *must* be deleted, is there a faster way to delete them? Can they be deleted simultaneously (as a group), instead of waiting for Explorer to delete each user account sequentially? Would it be faster to delete user accounts from a command line (using CMD.EXE), or by using a script?

Thanks,

Peter Shriner
pshriner@lpsd.k12.co.us

Hi Peter.

I don't know networking but I found some websites that might give you an idea.

http://helpdesk.morrisville.edu/XP_Printer.htm

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:14w7N9HWJCcC:www.wfu.edu/Library/ITC/training/xp/xpnetprint.pdf+network+printer+on+XP&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://www.microsoft.com/insider/printhelp/oscontent_winxp_network.asp

Take care,

Linda

How about assigning each computer a standard student login account. For example, if it's an English Lab and there's 30 PC's, the Login could be Eng1 to Eng30. Don't assign passwords, but give the accounts limited use. This way it would stay the same year round.

Assign the network printer to the computer. Add Printer -> \\print_server_name\share_name

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/itpro/networking/printershare.asp

Mike

Perhpas i'm missing somthing but...
Why can't you just locate the printer in the control panel,right click on it, select properties and check off "share this printer"?

Jimi_l

I hear you Jimi_l. Peter, what Jimi_l is refering to is how you set up a print server, what I stated above is how you set up the client. Why do you have to setup the printer for each user? You shouldn't have to.

Mike

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions.

I should have explained in more detail. When you, as the Administrator, install a network printer on a Windows XP Pro PC, the only user that will be able to see the new network printer is the Administrator. All other users (dozens of students, in our case) who have logged into that XP PC in the past, or who log into it the future, will not see the new printer because it only exists in the Administrator's user account.

In order to make the network printer visible to all users, we have been installing the printer in a test user account, then copying the test user account over as the Default User account.

All new users who subsequently log into the PC for the first time will be able to see the new printer. Their new user account is created by XP from the new Default User account, which includes the new printer.

However, any "old" user who logged into the PC (before the new network printer was added to the Default User account) will not see the new printer. Their user account -- which already exists on the PC and was originally created from the old Default User account -- does not include the newly installed printer.

To let "old" users see the new printer, you must delete all of their old user accounts on each PC before they log in again. Multiply this chore by dozens of PCs, and this takes a very long time. We are thus looking for a way to quickly install a network printer so it will be visible to all existing user accounts on each PC, without deleting their user accounts first.

Actually, I have found some possible solutions since my original post.

One involves installing the printer as a local printer (to the PC's LPT1 port), then changing the port path to that of the network printer. Note the problem described by "Manoj" in the following Windows Annoyances forum, and the answer posted by "dneeley":

Annoyances.Org
Network Printer Problem
Thread #1022569264
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win2000/t1022569264

There is also a command line method (using "rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry") for installing printers. Note the posts by "Brian Sanderson" in the following newsgroup search:

Google Groups
http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&q=%22bruce+sanderson%22+%22rundll32+printui%2Edll%2CPrintUIEntry%22

These sound promising.

Pete