But if a printer is not shared out to the network, is it a network device?
It can only be used on the local machine.
Do you want every local printer on every single machine in a company
showing
up in the directory? Consider a large multinational with hundreds of
thousands of desktops and thousands with local printers that aren't
shared.
Then you want a printer with a certain capability in a certain site and
you
look and find one in the directory but it isn't actually shared out. You
try
to print to it, you can't. You call IT. They look into it and chase it to
an
exec who is like piss off. :) You tell the person they can't use it and
they
get snotty because everyone is better and more important than IT. :)
Horrible escalations. :)
You could always create your own printqueue objects for your non-shared
printers. It sounds like they would get zilched back out of the directory
from the process Brian mentioned unless you disable the pruning. The other
issue would be the manadatory attribute for the share name but you could
give it would be if it were shared. I don't know what this would buy
except
that you can see them when browsing AD.
--
O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition -
http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Albert Duro
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 10:24 PM
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] Printers & AD GUI
You will note that when you create
a queue, you get the option to publish it to the directory, it isn't
mandatory, not required, it is simply an option
of course, but ONLY if you share them. As soon as you stop sharing them,
POOF
both you and Brian essentially said that yeah printers are not full AD
objects, and that's the way it is. But wasn't the promise of AD to bring
ALL network objects (in the prosaic sense) into the manageability fold?
There's no question that AD is vastly improved over NT as far as printers
go, but I'd like to see the promise fulfilled.
----- Original Message -----
From: "joe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 8:20 AM
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Printers & AD GUI
Print Queue objects are created by default under the computer on which
the
printers are shared from. It is, in fact, IMO, an extremely logical way
of
handling it since you don't have to worry about delegating permissions to
print admins, the computer itself can create/delete them as necessary.
MSMQ
Queues are handled the same way as lots of objects, in my default R2
forest
this is a list that can be handled this way
applicationVersion
classStore
comConnectionPoint
dSA
indexServerCatalog
intellimirrorSCP
ipsecFilter
ipsecISAKMPPolicy
ipsecNegotiationPolicy
ipsecNFA
ipsecPolicy
msDFSR-LocalSettings
msDS-App-Configuration
msDS-AppData
msieee80211-Policy
mSMQConfiguration
mS-SQL-OLAPServer
mS-SQL-SQLServer
nTFRSSubscriptions
printQueue
remoteStorageServicePoint
rpcGroup
rpcProfile
rpcProfileElement
rpcServer
rpcServerElement
rRASAdministrationConnectionPoint
serviceAdministrationPoint
serviceConnectionPoint
serviceInstance
storage
Volume
As for why they are third class citizens in AD... I expect it is because
they are. I haven't done excessive investigation into how printers are
handled but I expect the print queue objects in AD are simply reflections
of
the actual print queues on the servers. I don't expect you actually
manage
anything in AD for them, you manage them on the server/ws and then the
print
spooler updates any info it wants in AD. Certainly you find them in AD
but
that just tells the underlying software where to go look and the software
goes to that print queue directly on that server. I am pretty confident
that
if you delete a print queue object in AD the print queue will work
continue
to work fine on the server still, you just can't locate it via the AD.
Contrast that with users, groups, computers, and other objects I expect
you
consider first class citizens. If you delete those types of objects, you
will find they no longer work at all. :) You will note that when you
create
a queue, you get the option to publish it to the directory, it isn't
mandatory, not required, it is simply an option.
joe
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 10:44 AM
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: [ActiveDir] Printers & AD GUI
After 6 years of working with AD I just realized that when you unshare a
printer it becomes invisible and unmanageable. I guess I always knew
this in the back of my head, but it never hit home until I tried
cleaning up the printer list. Why are printers third-class citizens of
AD, without a container or a OU to their name? The only way to remotely
manage unshared printers is through the browse list, which is a pain.
Am I missing something? Are there other approaches to this? (no
megabucks solutions, please)
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