As preparation for migration to Windows 7 from XP, we would like to map shared printers based on computer using group policy preferences. Currently working with W7x86 only but will also need to sort out 64bit. Print servers are currently Server 2003, DC Server 2008, use roaming profiles. Have set up point and print restrictions for both compuer and user policies, restricting to server in forest, and not showing warnings for driver installation. Print queues within the GPO are currently set to 'replace'; 'remove this item when it is no longer applied' and item level targetting using netbios name. The only way I have managed to ensure queues are not re-mapped when out of the scope of item level targetting is to set up an additional item for each queue to delete the queue if it is not within the scope of the item level targetting - ie copying the original item, amending to delete, amending item level targetting to 'is not'. Settings are in single GPO set up for printing apart from point and print restrictions which are set at top level. Have also tried seperate GPO's to see if queues are not re-mapped, linked at a higher level, on logon the correctly policy only is applied, however, queues are retained when the user moves between machines.
Above resolves the issue the majority of times but there are still instances on logon where not all printers are mapped which needs to be resolved before rollout of Windows 7. Event log shows the following error for queues which are not re-mapped under the gpo multiple times -
The print spooler failed to reopen an existing printer connection because it could not read the configuration information from the registry key S-1-5-21-1708537768-861567501-1801674531-67893\Printers\Connections\,,MI-PRINTSRV2,MI-PQ002. This can occur if the key name or values are malformed or missing.
The preference items to set up the queues have been left with 'run is user context unticked', have also tried selecting this but this gave an error on installing new drivers.
The following are examples of error messages from the event log when queues are not mapped:-
Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x800706ba The RPC server is unavailable.' This error was suppressed;
Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x800706be The remote procedure call failed.' This error was suppressed.
The Print Spooler service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.
The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\hpcpn112.dll, error code 0x7e. See the event user data for context information.
Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x8007007a The data area passed to a system call is too small.' This error was suppressed.
The user 'MI-PQ003' preference item in the '#DEV DDMT_W7_Student_Print_MI {B3337223-1C6B-49B7-8F0D-757C37ED43F3}' Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x8000ffff Catastrophic failure' This error was suppressed.
Have tried using HP Universal Print Driver but got same results. Forum posts mention using drivers from Server 2008 in preference to vendor drivers, all our print servers are currently Server 2003.