| Microsoft
has very quietly added a new feature
to Service Pack 1 for Windows 2003
server. With SP1, open the group policy
editor and go to Computer Configuration
| Administrative Templates | Windows
Components | Terminal Services
| Client/Server data redirection. You'll
see a new policy item called "Terminal
Server Fallback Printer Driver
Behavior."
 | Both settings of "Not
Configured" or "Enabled" with "Do
nothing if one is not found" will
result in no client printer being
created using the fallback driver.
|
| "Default to PCL if one is not
found" will result in an auto
created printer using the PCL driver
if the standard driver mapping
process cannot find a suitable
driver on the Terminal Server or in
a mapping file.
|
| "Default to PS if one is not
found" will result in an auto
created printer using the Postscript
driver is a suitable driver cannot
be found.
|
| "Show both PCL and PS if one is
not found" will result in
an auto-created printer using the
PCL and the PS driver. |
The last option is quite interesting,
as it could be that your local printer
responds better to a PS then a PCL print
job and vice versa.
The term PCL and PS sound very
similar to Citrix’s Universal Print
Drive (UPD) I and II technology, so it
looks like it will behave the same.
There isn't much official mention of
these functions by Microsoft other then
some obscure programmer's references in this
preliminary MSDN article.
The new fallback driver will only be
available if the client machine is
Windows XP. (That one was to be
expected)
Of course this new driver will hit
the same limitations as the Citrix
version did, such as not working on host
based printers, no support for duplexing,
etc.
On the other hand, choosing to name
this function "fallback printer" instead
of "universal printer" like Citrix
did is a more close approach of the
truth, and the fact that it comes for
free is a nice extra.
I've tried to get this new fallback
printer to create but was unable to.
After ripping apart the ntprint.inf on
the server and looking in every corner
for a clue, I came to the conclusion
that either this technology is not fully
implemented in SP1 RC2 or I've missed
something to get it running. Hopefully
the final release will tell what exact
driver(s) is/are used as a fallback. |
