When using Group Policy Objects (GPOs) for printer deployments in your network you have the potential to run into a lot headache-inducing problems when things don’t work correctly (after all, this is Windows we are talking about here—things not going right is expected). Unless you’re an avid script kiddie that knows their way around PowerShell, the task of creating the GPOs is a cumbersome and tedious point and click process in a GUI Windows Server environment, and a lot of things could be overlooked and set up incorrectly. Some of the things that might go wrong or be overlooked can include:
- Point-and-Print Policies not configured correctly
- GPOs linked to the wrong OU
- Incorrect security filtering
- Incorrect GPO permissions
- OU not matching policy type
- Disabled GPO links
- Incorrect or mismatched drivers
- Incorrect Print Processor being used
- WMI filter issues
Essentially, you have multiple points of failure that can cause your printer to never make it to its target user or workstation. And even if everything is setup and working correctly, your printers are being installed while your user is logging into their workstation, which can really slow down login times, resulting in unnecessary help desk calls.
With PrinterLogic’s printer management solution, you have the ability to deploy your printers to your end users in a variety of ways beyond the Active Directory memberships, and they don’t require you to set up GPO’s or scripts to accomplish it. PrinterLogic’s deployment options will allow you to push your printers out by any of the Active Directory memberships (user, computer, group, container, organizational unit), an IP Address or IP Address range, Hostname (you can use wildcards * with the hostname), and by MAC address. So not only have your options for deployment expanded, but the printers don’t get installed while the users are logging into their workstations—they get added after they have logged in and they are being installed as direct IP printers. So you’ve eliminated multiple points of failure and solved or avoided the numerous problems you can run into when deploying printers out with GPOs.