Using Locally-Attached Network Printers with Terminal Services

If you work with Microsoft's Terminal Services on a regular basis, you've probably come accross a printing issue at some point. The point of this post is to provide a potential solution to the problem whereby locally attached network printers cannot be used from a remote terminal services session. By locally attached, I mean directly connected via. IP address, and not by way of a print server. This is often the case with consumer grade network printers, or wireless equivalents.

The concept is simple - attach the network printer as normal, then share it. Then, connect to the share on the local machine - thus using the printer as it is connect via a print server - with the server being the local machine. Here are the steps required to achieve this:

• First attach the printer as normal. For the type of connection I am describing this is via. a TCP/IP port. So choose New Printer in Printers and Faxes, and then Local printer attached to this computer.
• When asked the type of port, choose TCP/IP, and enter the IP address of the network printer.
• Once the printer is connected, share it. This can be done from the wizard, or by using the Sharing and Security panel afterwards.
• Then, choose New Printer again, this time selecting a network printer. Then enter \\<machine_name>\<share_name> as the path to the printer. Obviously machine name is the name of your computer, and share name is the name with which you shared the printer in the previous step.
• Note: This step will not introduce a new printer item to your list of printers, so don't be alarmed when nothing new appears. Just connect to the terminal server as in the last step.
• Once this is done, connect to your terminal services session and wait for a minute or two for the printer to appear. Note that version 6 of the Microsoft Terminal Services Client may be required for this to work.

Although it seems hacky, and untidy, this solution seems to work well, so I hope this will help at least one person out there. Happy printing.

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