- Joined
- 30 Jan 2004
- Messages
- 1,303
OMG WHAT IS THE F-ING DEAL WITH PRINTERS?
Seriously, they are the worst thing to support.
First off for some reason I can't delete printers that were published via GPO. Even if the GPO doesn't exist anymore. Even if the printers themselves don't exist anymore. No matter who is logged in. There is simply no permission level high enough to remove these things.
I've spent the better part of a week looking for answers. Today I find one. There is a vbs file called prnmngr.vbs in C:\windows\system32\Printing_Admin_Scripts\en-US that can delete these printers. The site I found shows how to execute this script through cscript along with a list of possible switches and a description of what each switch does. So I find the one to delete local printers. It doesn't work. I go through the list and find the one showing how to delete network printers. That doesn't work either. After looking for a while there is a note that if the printer is a network printer you have to specify which print server the printer is on before you can remove it. So I put in the command again along with "-s servername -x" which should delete all the network printers from this machine. I execute the command AND ... The GPO printers error out, saying access is denied but the network printers .... ALL OF THEM ... Have been deleted. Not from this local machine, but FROM THE PRINT SERVER ITSELF!!!!
So I just spent two hours reinstalling all of my printers to the print server. Now I have to get several hundred users to reinstall all of them. Also, going back to the unable to remove the old printers issue, most of these people already have gobs of printers installed. So it's going to cause an absolute glut of calls from people trying to figure out which printer is which and where they can print to. And to top it all of... I can't remember it ever being so freaking cold! I just want to go drinking. I wish it wasn't Tuesday.
Seriously, they are the worst thing to support.
First off for some reason I can't delete printers that were published via GPO. Even if the GPO doesn't exist anymore. Even if the printers themselves don't exist anymore. No matter who is logged in. There is simply no permission level high enough to remove these things.
I've spent the better part of a week looking for answers. Today I find one. There is a vbs file called prnmngr.vbs in C:\windows\system32\Printing_Admin_Scripts\en-US that can delete these printers. The site I found shows how to execute this script through cscript along with a list of possible switches and a description of what each switch does. So I find the one to delete local printers. It doesn't work. I go through the list and find the one showing how to delete network printers. That doesn't work either. After looking for a while there is a note that if the printer is a network printer you have to specify which print server the printer is on before you can remove it. So I put in the command again along with "-s servername -x" which should delete all the network printers from this machine. I execute the command AND ... The GPO printers error out, saying access is denied but the network printers .... ALL OF THEM ... Have been deleted. Not from this local machine, but FROM THE PRINT SERVER ITSELF!!!!
So I just spent two hours reinstalling all of my printers to the print server. Now I have to get several hundred users to reinstall all of them. Also, going back to the unable to remove the old printers issue, most of these people already have gobs of printers installed. So it's going to cause an absolute glut of calls from people trying to figure out which printer is which and where they can print to. And to top it all of... I can't remember it ever being so freaking cold! I just want to go drinking. I wish it wasn't Tuesday.