Sharing Printers

you need to install the printer under your user login also and the same for the ather users. I assume they have a roaming profile.

The shared workstation, where you have the printer connected, you need to install the printer driver on the local profile that you will be using with this computer. If that computer's users keep changing, then your best option is to set aside another computer (maybe an older non-used computer) to be the printer share point for your other users. Don't use the XP workstation as your share-point if you keep having to log off and on. The printer will not be readily avaible at all times.

I agree basically with the other posts. Each user profile associates files and resources with the profile ON THAT MACHINE. If you move to a different workstation, even though your profile is allowed to logon to it, it will not have the resources available. If this is networked you should be able to choose your printer from a list. Unless you are using a shared drive for files anything that they save to "My Documents" will only be available on the machine that it was saved on also. It's best toassign workstations and not move around too much. A common print workstation with all associates placing work to be printed on a common shared drive might be a good work around.

Unless Im misreading what you said the outcome is by design. Since XP is an NT based OS user profiles tend to be specific. When a new user logs on to a system there will not be any printers defined for that profile until they are installed for thatuser profile. There are some registry work arounds but you could make a logon script or .bat that runs at startup that installs or remaps the printers each time a user logs onto the PC. Try this article about scripting from microsoft: Q314486 link: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314486
(remove any pesky spaces)
You might also try using a policy editor to add them each time a new user logs on.

hope this helps some.

Jason

Isn't there a work around? We are in a school environment and each of the 650 students has their own login. We are thinking about switching to XP as our OS. What will we have to do in labs with over 20 machines where different users are always logging in and printing?

Hi,
Here are two discussions:
1. Local installed printer and the access of the local users (domain account or local account) to that printer.
2. Access to that printer from other computer.
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1. By default a local printer is available for all users of this workstation (install this printer under local admin account). You don't need any additional settings for the users of this workstation.
2. Every user which want to print to a share printer must run the add network printer wizard. If they use roaming profile, no matter on which workstation will work, they will have already set this network printer (they don't need to run again add printer wizard).
For more details read at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/default.asp?url=/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/sag_setup_indirect_printer.asp

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