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Remove Existing Printers with Group Policy

After deploying various programs to my Windows 7 machines, they collected a few printers that are not useful for my end-users; these can be removed with a Group Policy object assigned to the computer's OU:

Create a new GPO, call it something like gpPrinterSettings

Edit the new group policy object, and naviagate to Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Printers

Right click in white space of the righthand side of the window and click New -> Local Printer

Choose Delete from the Action pull down box.

Type the name of the local printer you want to remove - You must get the name exactly the same for the group policy object to match the local printer and remove it.

Eg. to remove the OneNote Printer installed with Office 2010, type "Send to OneNote 2010 " (without the quotes) into the Name box.

Click OK.

Repeat this process for each local printer you want removed. I have the following printers removed using this method:

Fax, Microsoft XPS Document Writer, Send To OneNote 2010, SMART Notebook Document Writer.

Enable the User Group Policy loopback processing for this group policy object. Use the Merge mode. To do this: Navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Group Policy -> User Group Policy loopback processing mode. Set it to Enabled, change the mode to Merge.

Reboot the machines in this OU. During the boot process you should see the Group Policy Printers Policy being applied.

Deploy Printers with Group Policy

Shared Printers are added per user, to depoly a shared printer, first install the printer on the server (don't forget to add additional drivers for all the types of machine that are in your domian.

Open the gpPrinterSettings Group Policy Object created ealier (or create a new Group Policy object) and assign it to the OU that contains the computers that you wish this printer(s) to be installed on.

Navigate to User Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Printers

Right click in the white space on the right hand side of the window and choose New -> Shared Printer

Choose Create from the Action drop down list.

Type the UNC path to the shared printer in the Share path box. eg. \\server\printer01

Put a tick in the Set this printer as the default printer (if required).

Click OK.

Repeat this process for each printer you want deployed to this group of machines.

If the printer drives are not already installed on the local workstations, you will need to disable the Point and Print Restrictions policy. This setting exists in both the Computer and User configuration - I have disabled it in both for completeness.

Navigate to Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Printers -> Point and Print Restrictions

Set this policy to Disabled.

Navigate to User Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Control Panel -> Printers -> Point and Print Restrictions.

Set this policy to Disabled.