Terminals services redirected printers vs Windows shared printers

[John]

Environment: Windows 2000 SP4 server, Windows 98SE clients. Various
clients have parallel printers on their LPT1: ports. No network (TCP/IP
capable) printers. Wide area network over a variety of network links
(different speeds).

When I log in to the server from a client. Terminal Services creates me a
"Session" printer pointing to any locally attached printer I may have; thus
allowing me to print from my session on the server back to my local printer.

My question is why would I want to do this? As opposed to sharing my
printer on my 98SE client, and setting up an old fashioned printer queue on
the server to point to the printer attached to the client PC?

Can't I just achieve my printing with old fashioned print sharing as opposed
to the "session printer" that terminal services creates for me? Is there a
performance issue - there seems to be from my initial playing around...

please advice,

regards,

John Kruiniger.

 

[ack]

I'm not sure about performance, but as to why session
printers, it's partly a security/control issue. In a more
restrictive environment, not everyone is allowed to share
out their local printers, and the administrators might not
want all local printers to be shared.

 

[Guest]

The idea of using terminal server or any kind of "Server Based Computing" is to make the client machines replaceable so you get the same experience no matter where you connect from.

The only time I would see it beneficial to share someone's local printer is if others need to print to your printer

What if your computer is not on the same network as the Terminal Server
If you get a new computer then a new share needs to be setup
Not everyone know how to setup file & print sharing or has the sufficient rights to do so
What if you're logging onto the Terminal Server from home

Setting up print queues for always available printers and auto-creation of local printers just serve different purposes. If only you need to print to the printer, then there's no need to share your printer

Patrick Rous
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Serve
http://www.workthin.co

----- John wrote: ----

Environment: Windows 2000 SP4 server, Windows 98SE clients. Variou
clients have parallel printers on their LPT1: ports. No network (TCP/I
capable) printers. Wide area network over a variety of network link
(different speeds)

When I log in to the server from a client. Terminal Services creates me
"Session" printer pointing to any locally attached printer I may have; thu
allowing me to print from my session on the server back to my local printer

My question is why would I want to do this? As opposed to sharing m
printer on my 98SE client, and setting up an old fashioned printer queue o
the server to point to the printer attached to the client PC

Can't I just achieve my printing with old fashioned print sharing as oppose
to the "session printer" that terminal services creates for me? Is there
performance issue - there seems to be from my initial playing around..

please advice

regards

John Kruiniger

 

[John Kruiniger]

ok thanks for your reply Patrick, I can see and appreciate the advantages
of Terminal Server print redirection as you describe in your response.

However those particular advantages don't actually apply to me so much (I
don't have a mobile user base or frequently install/remove PCs, and all my
PCs are on the same [wide area] network); so I just want to double check
that they are the only reasons?

Specifically, there's no particular performance advantage in printing to a
Terminal Services Session printer, as opposed to printing to a "NT print
share" on a client PC?

It may [or may not?!] help if I give some more details on my environment:
We have seven offiices in different cities each with a bunch of PCs. Only
two printers in each office - one Dot matrix printer required for printing
special forms, and one laser printer for printing other stuff. So one PC
in each office has the Dot matrix on its LPT1 port, and another has the
laser on its LPT1 port. All people on the [maybe 6] PCs in the office log
into the central server over Terminal Services and run the in-house
application. Each needs the ability from time to time to print to the Dot
matrix and the laser printers in their office.

Seems to me I have no need of Terminal Services printer redirection? I may
as well turn it off in Terminal Services Conficuration, and just set up
print queues to each of the slaved printers. Given that I'm prepared to do
that, is there any downside? Again I'm just suspicious that printing seems
to be slower [over the WAN links] this way ... ? If not then I am keen to
go this way, please advise.

regards,

John Kruiniger.

The idea of using terminal server or any kind of "Server Based Computing"

is to make the client machines replaceable so you get the same experience no
matter where you connect from.

The only time I would see it beneficial to share someone's local printer

is if others need to print to your printer.

What if your computer is not on the same network as the Terminal Server?
If you get a new computer then a new share needs to be setup.
Not everyone know how to setup file & print sharing or has the sufficient rights to do so.
What if you're logging onto the Terminal Server from home?

Setting up print queues for always available printers and auto-creation of

local printers just serve different purposes. If only you need to print to
the printer, then there's no need to share your printer.