Re: Printers not appearing in Active Directory

Thanks for your response Ace -- my answers are interspersed below.

--
Bones


"Ace Fekay [MVP]" wrote:

In news:EFC21FEF-68F2-4211-838B-9BAF2ED0B5C7@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Bones <Bones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> stated, which I commented on below:
Hey folks! Hopefully someone will be able to help me with an odd
problem. I have a Windows 2003 domain controller in a single domain
that is sharing 14 printers but only five of them are showing up in
Active Directory. As far as I can see, all of the printers have
similar settings, ie., they're set to publish in AD, their security
is identical to one another, etc.

When a user attempts to add a printer to their PC (we allow all our
users to do this), only the five show up in the AD search. But when
they type \\servername\ in the connect to this printer box, all 14
show up in the drop-down list (proving NetBIOS is working fine).

I've searched the web and Microsoft's site but I can't find any
solution to this so if anyone has a bright idea, it would be
appreciated.

As you know, they normally just show up. Unless of course, there are
security stipulations on the AD printer objects (not the printer themselves,
since you've proved they can add them by a simple non-AD printer NetBIOS
browse), or some other issue is going on with AD.

With the NetBIOS method, are the users able to connect to the printer (I
know they show up, but can they physically connect to them and use them)?

Yes they can -- it's how I've taught them to connect to the non-AD visible
printers.

Do you have location attributes set, and if so, during the search, are you
using any search filters on locations? (Printer location tracking must be
set in a GPO before it works, that coincides with pre-configured Site
location attributes.)

No location attributes set right now (although I'll have to if we grow much
more). I tell them to just hit the Find Now button to bring up all the AD
printers.

Any event log errors?

Nope, neither on the box searching for a printer nor on the server with the
printers.

Can I assume (just to get it out of the way, and is a major issue with many
installations) that you are not using an ISP's DNS address in any client or
DC?

Nope, although I don't blame you for asking. :-)

--
Ace
Innovative IT Concepts, Inc (IITCI)
Willow Grove, PA

This posting is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties or guarantees and
confers no rights.

Ace Fekay, MCSE 2003 & 2000, MCSA 2003 & 2000, MCSE+I, MCT, MVP
Microsoft MVP - Directory Services
Microsoft Certified Trainer

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