If you are a systems admin running a small or large computer network, based on windows 2003 server you are likely to encounter some problems when scripting printers to your client computers.

In Windows Vista, you need to be an administrator or have similar rights to install shared domain printers. You could of course create a new printer admin account, and share the details with your users, but that is a bad way to go.

Here is the way to fix this issue:

1). Make sure that you are scripting the printer to the client machine before proceeding.

2). Logon to the machine with a domain user account, NOT the local administrator account.

3). You will now see a warning dialogue about adding the driver for the shared printer, click “install”.

4). You are now prompted for the administrator password, please pay attention to the next step!

5). In the username field enter “computername\administrator”, where computername is the name of the computer. Then enter the local administrator password.

6). Repeat the process for every printer.

If you are creating an image to be deployed, make sure that you move the computer to the different OU’s in the domain where you have printers.

After that is completed, you are ready to image the install, and printers drivers are accepted. Of course you can also install the printer drivers directly, but personaly I prefer to have the drivers served by the domain print server.