Fix a windows network printer that is offline

How to fix a network printer that get's installed and shows offline.

By default SNMP is set to public, so when you are installing a network printer; you need to ensure you have all the information about the printer.  If you don't configure the SNMP of your print driver to the same as the printer it installs but shows up offline.  It also takes forever to install.

There are two ways to approach a resolution to this problem.  Install the driver then change the SNMP in the driver or setup the port and add the printer.  In my case I added the printer first so then I'm going to update the port.

Get the properties of the printer you want to edit in my case the 2525AC and go to ports select the port in use and configure port

Change the SNMP Status from public to what it you need it to be

Hit OK and close the printer properties.  It will take a few seconds but then the printer status will change from offline to ready.

PC Reliance receipt printing issue on Windows 10

 

PC Reliance is a piece of software produced by SirsiDynix and is used for off-line circulation when performing an ILS upgrade or if the ILS is going to be down for a prolonged period of time.  Horizon based libraries have been using this for at least 10 years and the last update for the software was in October 2008.  Under Windows 7, it did not require any changing of the driver default settings.  However if you are running Windows 10 you will have to reconfigure the driver software in this case an Epson TM-T88V.

Going with the default install setting on the Epson TM-T88V, the receipt printer works fine for all applications.  Vend, Horizon ILS Client, notepad, etc.  as shown below.

When you open PC Reliance you don't have many options to configure below is a look at the GUI; and a item put in for checkout so we can do a test print.

However when you try and use PC Reliance you get this when you print the reciept.

The fix is to change the setting on your receipt printer.  Go to your printer right click and select printer properties

Then select Preferences.

Then Select Advanced

By Default, the settings are as follows

You need to change them to the following:

TrueType Font: Substitute with Device Font (Not required to change)

Print Optimizations: Disable

Once that is saved and enabled, your receipt will now print properly.

How to deploy a printer with zero (no) touch though Active Directory

What is zero touch or no touch deployment?  Well it is the process of configuring devices and pushing updates out to the network from a central location. As the term implies, zero-touch configuration enables IT teams to configure, or modify, hundreds or even thousands of devices remotely.  In this case a zero touch deployment of a printer to a half dozen workstations.  Now I understand there are many different ways of doing it and Microsoft has allowed this pretty far back and was mostly done with bat files and scripts.  In an effort to modernize things here is how you can do it using just your active directory.  I do have some caveats that will need to be in place first.  Also be aware that this is what Print Nightmare exploits, I will go though some mitigation things that can be done; however as always you have convince vs security.

Here are some mitigation links you can read about for the Print nightmare exploits.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5005010-restricting-installation-of-new-printer-drivers-after-applying-the-july-6-2021-updates-31b91c02-05bc-4ada-a7ea-183b129578a7

https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2021-34527

https://www.lansweeper.com/vulnerability/printnightmare-episode-6-yet-another-print-spooler-vulnerability-disclosed/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/printnightmare/

1. You will need a print server and it will have to be connected to your AD
2. You will need properly setup security groups in your ad
3. You will need your print servers setup with drivers installed and drivers setup for deployment.

On the print server I have everything patched as much as I can; and I have employed all the print nightmare mitigations, besides disabling the print spooler for obvious reasons.  So on your print server you should have your printer shared with proper permissions.  Here is where you set all your printer defaults for your clients, like the default paper tray, duplex, etc.

So in this case I have the administrators group for the domain, the local admin, and the organizational group that needs to print to the printer.

As you can see if it is deployed with group policy, the shows up in the "Deploy with group policy" menu item

Then in deployed printers it will show how you have the printer deployed.

Now on your active directory controller, go to the group policy object you deployed the printer to in this case "Group That needs printer"

Edit the Group policy "Group that needs printer" which we deployed our printers on from the print server.  In the Policies settings we should see the deployed printers for both users and computers because that is where we deployed them.

Now it's up to you how to want to install the printer.  You can deploy it by user or computer, in this case I am deploying it by user, if you want things to be a bit more restrictive deploying by location based computer would definitely be the way to go as the use will still have the printer if they use say a remote desktop server to connect occasionally.  In this case I do want that functionality as it was requested and approved.  In group policy go to User Configuration or Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Printers

To add a printer; right click in printers -> select shared printer (which is what I want in my case you can also select an ip printer or a local printer)

Select your share path and fill out any options you need.  Such as update, create, remove, etc.  In this case I used create, and set as default printer.  

The printer should automatically deploy though group policy.  In this case, I had users already logged in get the printer with the defaults.  In this case Tray 2's uptake was not working so I disabled it in the driver and had setup tray 3 to be the default.  The deployment went quickly and easily; granted print nightmare is still a problem but we still need to use these printers, and we have all the print nightmare fixes in that we can have, so users can still use their printers.