Printing in Outlook 2003 - Per User printing verses Per PC printin

[Trent]

Hi All,

We recently changed all our Printers on Windows XP SP2 (joined to a domain)
from "Per User" installation to "Per PC" installation.

If you add a printer via Start / Settings / Printers / Add printer, it is a
per user printer. IE If you go to a different PC (and you have a roaming
profile) the printer will be available to you on the new PC.
That's great if you go to the PC next to you... It's not so good if you go
to a different site or floor and want to print to the printer closest to you.

To solve this, we removed all the printers and added them as "Per PC"
printers. IE, It doesn't matter who logs into the PC, the available printers
will always be the ones installed on the PC.
We installed the printers using the following command:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /y /n\\PServer\Printer1

That's a quick explanation of what we did. Now down to the Problem:

Before, (with the printer installed as a per user printer) when you're in
Outlook 2003, if you highlight a message (or open it) and press CTRL + P or
click File / Print, the print dialog box shows the default printer. This is
good and what I would expect.

Now we have deleted the "Per User" printer and added the "Per PC" printer
connection. When we do the same thing in Outlook, the Printer "Name" box is
empty. You have to manually select the printer you want to print to. Once
you've done this, Outlook seems to remember the printer until you close
Outlook. Next time you open Outlook, you have to go through the same process.

It appears that Outlook doesn't seem to be able to pickup or remember the
default printer when it's installed on a Per PC basis.

Note that if you hover over the Printer button on the toolbar in Outlook, it
shows the default printer correctly and also prints correctly to the default
printer when you press the button.

I also built a fresh XP SP2 PC with only Office 2003 installed and got the
same problem.

Any Ideas? Can anyone confirm if the same thing happens to them?

Cheers
Trent

 

[Castell]

Yes - I've experienced similar problems. I gave up on Machine based
printers.

 

[Trent]

We contacted Microsoft about this...

They have logged it as a bug in Outlook 2003 and 2007.

A fix will be made available at some point.

 

[JeffH]

Hi,

I am experiencing the same problem in Outlook 2002. The most frustrating
part I find is that if an end user tries to select a printer from the
drop-down list, the printout always goes to the default printer.

JeffH

 

[Wes]

Does anyone know if Microsoft have released this fix? If so can
someone please provide the URL it seems very difficult to track down
any other details about this specific problem that we are also
experiencing.

Thanks

 

[Brian Tillman]

Does anyone know if Microsoft have released this fix?

Released what fix? You didn't include any context for your question.

 

[Diane Poremsky {MVP}]

it can take forever for patches to make it through development, testing and
release to corporate clients for additional testing. The best thing is to
call support and open an incident.



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