Craziness with Printers and Servers and Remote Desktop - Need Help

[Bladefury]

Ok here's the deal,

I work for a company that does random computer stuff for random people.

One client has a server at his work with several printers/other computers, and he also has computers/printers at home.

What he WANTS:

He wants to remote desktop into the server FROM HIS HOME, and be able to print to one of the printers AT HIS HOME OR AT HIS WORK. Keep in mind his server is at his work, about 10 miles away.

Now the remote desktop connection is already setup, and works quite nicely. Infact I can log into it from here since I know the user info. Also, he can already print to one of his printers AT WORK from the remote desktop connection, but he needs to be able to print to one of his computers at home WHILE USING that connection. Also, he is terrible at using computers.

Edit: Also, he is using some programs where the data is located inside certain files, so he cannot simply copy/paste the files to whatever computer he wants and then print it from there. He NEEDS the SELECT PRINTER button to be able to pull up printers AT WORK AND AT HOME at the same time.

How to accomplish this? Any suggestions would be awesome.

[Vorph]

In the RDP client, click Options, go to Local Resources tab, Local Devices, and check the Printers box. Make sure File and Printer Sharing is enabled in XP (locally), and the printer is actually shared. You may need to fiddle with it some more, but it's always just worked for me.

[Bladefury]

The printers are being shared. The problem is that the server and his home computer/home printer are not on the same network. :\

Edit: Here's the basic setup for more information.

Office Network: Consists of a server, 4-5 computers, 3-4 printers. Any computer can access any of those printers.

Home Network: Consists of 3 computers, 2 printers. Any computer can access any of these printers.

The server at the Office Network needs to be able to access the printers on the home network.

[Vorph]

Ahh, I knew I forgot something--I've always been VPN'ed when doing that. That way the remote computer can see the shared printers and connect to them.

[MrGraham]

i dont think what he wants done is possible.

[Flanders]

No its certainly is possible. I've done it several times. In fact I can RDP into my dev server all the way accross town right now and everything is mapped. The only thing that isnt mapped is my local harddrives, but thats a citrix thing and we wont get into that.

By default the RDP protocal has the capability to map to a local printer. Its a bread and butter fundamental of terminal services. One of the problems most admins run into (with both citrix and TS) is that the server has trouble with the printer driver. Most of the time (and Im not saying in your case) the printer driver is for some piece of shit all-in-one (fax, copy, email, color bubble jet) home printer. And the drivers that come with those printers are laden with poopy little utilites like ink level readers and fax machine monitors and other shit. Usually these drivers need direct USB communication with the divice itself in order to work. So if those drivers are installed on the server they wont work with the printer as intended and you will most like see an error in Event viewer event 1110 or 1106 labeled with the header TermServDevice. The actual error text will be something close to "The printer could not be installed". Sometimes they are even more verbose than that stating the workstation host name and the driver that is trying to run.

So I would check a few things, is it a USB device? Is the driver installed on the server? Is the driver an "administrator" basic function driver? (if not you can always install the generic HP printer driver. I assume its an HP). Are there any TermServDevice or Event 1110, 1106 events in Event Viewer?

If that still doesnt work, charge him the 100 bucks an hour you normally do and just say HP sucks.