Redirect ONLY the default printer of a TS client to a W2K3 terminal server

I am working on a login script for a client and I bumped into this KB article that confused me a bit until I figured out that this hotfix was created to redirect *only* the client's default local printer to the terminal server session and leave the rest of the printers on the client machine unmapped.

Very handy for clients that only print to their local printer but have 10 other printers defined that are never used.

The nice thing is, you can make this system wide or for only specific users *on the client machine*, depending on if you put "RedirectDefaultPrinterOnly" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

That was another bit of confusion that made me read the KB article a few times. The hotfix gets applied to the *server* but the actual registry entries get put on each *workstation* connecting to the server that has the hotfix.

For system wide default printer redirection:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns\RDPDR\RedirectDefaultPrinterOnly needs to be set to 1 (DWORD).

For a specific user only:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns\RDPDR\RedirectDefaultPrinterOnly needs to be set to 1 (DWORD).

Read more about it at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911913

I suspect that this is a backport of a Vista RDP feature, but I could be wrong.

Posted by Aaron Tiensivu at 10:35 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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I've read the KB article and this post several times and still find some things missing. The first is that the KB article refers to a hotfix, but has neither a number indicating what hotfix it is nor a link from which to download it. The second is that I would have never guessed that the registry entry for RedirectDefaultPrinterOnly went on the client side based on the KB article. Checking my WinXP machine I find that my registry path is good up to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns. I do not have the RDPDR key and have not found any reference to creating it manually or where it should come from if it is not present.

#1 Eric Vaughn on 2007-09-10 12:07 (Reply)

FYI: I tried the HKCU registry entry on my client machines and it worked perfectly for my Win 2003 installation. I no longer have dozens of bogus printers appearing on the server, and everyone has their primary printer available. I am so happy to have stumbled on to his info - Thanks!

#2 Jeff Hopper on 2009-02-04 12:37 (Reply)

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