Microsoft printer location tracking

Not an IT pro? Windows Server TechCenter. Sign in. United States English. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Answered by:. Archived Forums. Windows Server General Forum. The default value is eight hours. If the computer hasn't responded by the last contact attempt, its printers are pruned from the directory. Pre-populate printer search location text: Enables the physical Location Tracking setting for Windows printers.

Use Location Tracking to design a location scheme for your enterprise and assign computers and printers to locations in the scheme. Location Tracking overrides the standard method that is used to locate and associate computers and printers. The standard method uses a printer's IP address and subnet mask to estimate its physical location and proximity to computers.

If you enable this setting, users can browse for printers by location without knowing the printer's location or location naming scheme. By default, if you enable the Group Policy Computer location setting, the default location that you entered appears in the Location field.

Printer Browsing: If you enable this setting, the print subsystem announces shared printers for printer browsing. Disable this setting if you don't want the print subsystem to add shared printers to the browse list. If this setting isn't configured, shared printers aren't added to the browse list if a Directory service is available. They're added if a Directory service is unavailable. Prune printers that are not automatically republished: This setting determines whether printers can be pruned from the directory.

It's best to leave this setting unconfigured. However, if you find that printers are being pruned even though the computer from which they are published is functioning and on the network, you can enable this policy to prevent the pruning service from deleting the published printers during network outages or situations in which dial-up links that are up only intermittently are used.

To prevent printers from being removed from Active Directory, enable this policy, and retain the default selection of Never in the Prune non-republishing printers list. Web-based printing: This policy bit is designed for administrators to disable Internet printing entirely. When this policy bit is selected, none of the shared printers on the server are published to the web. And none of the shared printers are able to accept incoming jobs from other clients by using HTTP.

The default is not selected. Add Printer wizard - Network scan page Managed network : This policy sets the maximum number of printers of each type that the Add Printer wizard will display on a computer on a managed network when the computer can reach a domain controller.

For example, a domain-joined laptop on a corporate network. Add Printer wizard - Network scan page Unmanaged network : This policy sets the maximum number of printers of each type that the Add Printer wizard will display on a computer on an unmanaged network when the computer can't reach a domain controller.

For example, a domain-joined laptop on a home network. Always render print jobs on the server : When printing through a print server, determines whether the print spooler on the client will process print jobs itself or pass them on to the server to do the work. This policy setting affects printing to a Windows print server only. Execute print drivers in isolated processes : This policy setting determines whether the print spooler will execute print drivers in an isolated or separate process.

When print drivers are loaded in an isolated process or isolated processes, a print driver failure won't cause the print spooler service to fail. Extend Point and Print connection to search Windows Update : This policy setting allows you to manage where client computers search for Point and Print drivers.

If you enable this policy setting, the client computer will continue to search for compatible Point and Print drivers from Windows Update after it fails to find the compatible driver from the local driver store and the server driver cache.

Only use Package Point and print : This policy restricts client computers to use package point and print only. If this setting is enabled, users will be able to point and print only to printers that use package-aware drivers.

When using package point and print, client computers will check the driver signature of all drivers that are downloaded from print servers. Override print driver execution compatibility setting reported by print driver : This policy setting determines whether the print spooler will override the Driver Isolation compatibility that's reported by the print driver.

It enables executing print drivers in an isolated process even if the driver does not report compatibility. If you enable this policy setting, the print spooler will ignore the Driver Isolation compatibility flag value that is reported by the print driver.

Package Point and print - Approved servers : Restricts package point and print to approved servers. This policy setting restricts package point and print connections to approved servers. This setting applies only to Package Point and Print connections and is independent from the Point and Print Restrictions policy that governs the behavior of non-package point and print connections.

Client that's running Windows Vista or a later version of Windows will try to make a non-package point and print connection anytime that a package point and print connection fail.

This includes attempts that are blocked by this policy. Administrators may have to set both policies to block all print connections to a specific print server. If this setting is enabled, users will be able to package point and print only to print servers that are approved by the network administrator. Point and Print Restrictions : This policy setting controls the client Point and Print behavior, including the security prompts for Windows Vista computers.

The policy setting applies only to non-Print Administrator clients, and only to computers that are members of a domain. Windows XP and later clients will only download print driver components from a list of explicitly named servers. If a compatible print driver is available on the client, a printer connection will be made. On Windows 10 only, if you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the default limit is applied.

In Windows 8 and later, Bluetooth printers are not shown so its limit does not apply to those versions of Windows. If you enable this setting or do not configure it, when users choose to add a network printer by selecting the "A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer" radio button on Add Printer Wizard's page 2, and also check the "Connect to this printer or to browse for a printer, select this option and click Next " radio button on Add Printer Wizard's page 3, and do not specify a printer name in the adjacent "Name" edit box, then Add Printer Wizard displays the list of shared printers on the network and invites to choose a printer from the shown list.

If you disable this setting, the network printer browse page is removed from within the Add Printer Wizard, and users cannot search the network but must type a printer name. This setting affects the Add Printer Wizard only. It does not prevent users from using other programs to search for shared printers or to connect to network printers. When printing through a print server, determines whether the print spooler on the client will process print jobs itself, or pass them on to the server to do the work.

If you enable this policy setting on a client machine, the client spooler will not process print jobs before sending them to the print server. This decreases the workload on the client at the expense of increasing the load on the server.

If you disable this policy setting on a client machine, the client itself will process print jobs into printer device commands. These commands will then be sent to the print server, and the server will simply pass the commands to the printer. This increases the workload of the client while decreasing the load on the server. This policy does not determine whether offline printing will be available to the client.

The client print spooler can always queue print jobs when not connected to the print server. Upon reconnecting to the server, the client will submit any pending print jobs. Some printer drivers require a custom print processor. In some cases the custom print processor may not be installed on the client machine, such as when the print server does not support transferring print processors during point-and-print. In the case of a print processor mismatch, the client spooler will always send jobs to the print server for rendering.

Disabling the above policy setting does not override this behavior. In cases where the client print driver does not match the server print driver mismatched connection , the client will always process the print job, regardless of the setting of this policy. If you enable this setting and type an Internet or intranet address in the text box, the system adds a Browse button to the "Specify a Printer" page in the Add Printer Wizard.

The Browse button appears beside the "Connect to a printer on the Internet or on a home or office network" option. When users click Browse, the system opens an Internet browser and navigates to the specified URL address to display the available printers. Determines whether printers using kernel-mode drivers may be installed on the local computer.

Kernel-mode drivers have access to system-wide memory, and therefore poorly-written kernel-mode drivers can cause stop errors. If you do not configure this setting on Windows Server family products, the installation of kernel-mode printer drivers will be blocked. If you enable this setting, installation of a printer using a kernel-mode driver will not be allowed. This policy does not apply to bit kernel-mode printer drivers as they cannot be installed and associated with a print queue.

If a user tries to delete a printer, such as by using the Delete option in Printers in Control Panel, a message appears explaining that a setting prevents the action. If this policy is disabled, or not configured, users can delete printers using the methods described above.

This policy sets the maximum number of printers of each type that the Add Printer wizard will display on a computer on an unmanaged network when the computer is not able to reach a domain controller, e. If this setting is not configured, the Add Printer wizard will display the default number of printers of each type:. If this setting is enabled, users will only be able to point and print to printers that use package-aware drivers.

When using package point and print, client computers will check the driver signature of all drivers that are downloaded from print servers. If this setting is disabled, or not configured, users will not be restricted to package-aware point and print only.

This policy setting restricts package point and print connections to approved servers. This setting only applies to Package Point and Print connections, and is completely independent from the "Point and Print Restrictions" policy that governs the behavior of non-package point and print connections. Windows Vista and later clients will attempt to make a non-package point and print connection anytime a package point and print connection fails, including attempts that are blocked by this policy.

Administrators may need to set both policies to block all print connections to a specific print server. If this setting is enabled, users will only be able to package point and print to print servers approved by the network administrator. If this setting is disabled, or not configured, package point and print will not be restricted to specific print servers.

If this policy setting is enabled, it specifies the default location criteria used when searching for printers. This setting is a component of the Location Tracking feature of Windows printers. To use this setting, enable Location Tracking by enabling the "Pre-populate printer search location text" setting.

When Location Tracking is enabled, the system uses the specified location as a criterion when users search for printers.