Network Printers not migrating in Offline Mode ?

[anyweb]

You are using Offline mode in Windows PE and you notice it's not migrating your network printers.

 

Don't worry, windows-noob is here to help, add the following XML file to your existing USMT 4 package.

 

Please note: the following has been tested successfully with the guide here. Please also note that this will migrate the network printers settings but not the printer drivers. In addition, this xml file will migrate your network shares.

 

 

Add the printers.xml file to your USMT 4 package

 

locate your USMT 4 package and copy the following file to it:

 

printers.xml

 

 

Edit your Runscanstate

 

edit your Runscanstate.bat file so that it has the following appended to it

 

/i:%~2\USMTbits\x86\printers.xml

 

the entire line should look like so

 

@set USMT_WORKING_DIR=%~2%\USMTbits\x86

"%~2\USMTbits\x86\scanstate.exe" "%~1" /c /o /hardlink /efs:hardlink /nocompress /offlinewindir:c:\windows /v:5 /l:%~2\SMSTSLog\scanstate.log /progress:%~2\SMSTSLog\scanstateprogress.log /i:%~2\USMTbits\x86\miguser.xml /i:%~2\USMTbits\x86\migapp.xml /i:%~2\USMTbits\x86\printers.xml

 

Update Distribution Points

 

Update the distribution points for BOTH packages above, and do your offline in WinPE tests again.

 

References:

 

1. Offline Migration - Technet

2. Offline mode in Windows PE - windows-noob

 

 

cheers

niall

[jmcook01]

When moving from XP 32-bit to Win 7 64-bit is there an easy way to get the drivers installed fro the printers that are migrated? Should we just package up the drivers and install them as a normal install software step?

[Red3Recon]

AnyWeb,

 

Thanks for all of your great work here! I have been using this Printers.xml with great success in the offline migration scenario. I have one problem, when the migration is done, the network printers are imported and they can be printed to; you cannot select a default printer, however.

 

This is fixed by adding the "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\Device" in regedit, doesn't matter what I set it to, just adding and re-booting fixes it.

 

What baffles me that info should be there! Given your key below:

<pattern type="Registry">HKCU\software\microsoft\windows NT\currentVersion\Windows\* [*]</pattern>

 

Any advice or recommendations would be great!

[ChandanOmkar]

Can I use this printer.xml with /config parameter with scanstate.

 

like scanstate /config:printer.xml /i:miguser.xml \\myshare\myfolder /nocompress

[Peter van der Woude]

Don't use it as a config, just use it as any other settings XML. So use another /i:printer.xml

[nafanja]

Hi Guys,

 

just a quick question - do you really need to take HKLM part if you only care about user settings?

 

and BTW, it looks like an old topic, but i'm woundering why the folowing line is used twice in this XML file and nobody asked it before?

<pattern type="Registry">HKCU\software\microsoft\windows NT\currentVersion\Windows\* [*]</pattern>

 

THNX!

[deenos]

Hi Guys,

 

The component to migrate printer settings uses the <destinationCleanup> ruleset which means scanstate will not collect any data inside the <objectSet>?

 

I would have thought we want to gather these registry keys during scanstate and then restore them during loadstate?

 

Is this by design? Am I missing something?

 

Thanks,

[deenos]

Just a follow up for anyone else who may be experiencing issues with migrating printers in an offline migration.

 

In the attached "printers.xml", I changed the ruleset <destinationCleanup> in the "printer settings" component to <include> and this successfully migrated all network printers and settings from Windows XP to Windows 7. This also answers the question raised above by "Red3Recon" about why HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\Device did not migrate and it also subsequently resolves the problem of not being able to set a default printer after migration. NB - there are two instances of <destinationCleanup> that need to be changed to <include>.

[tconners]

Can I just add this .XML file to the "Files" in my "Capture User State" Task in SCCM??

[anyweb]

sure thing, try it

[cfitz-gerald@wcbsask.com]

Hi Niall and everybody,

 

I have used the printers.xml myself, and have ran into problems with Adobe PDF printers specifically when the scanstate is ran on a different version of Acrobat than what loadstate is ran on. (Acrobat 9 vs Acrobat 11). In this scenario the v11 Adobe PDF printer is deleted.

 

I'm just wondering...is there a way to edit the printers.xml so that it only backs up the network printer connections? We just need to include only connections that start with \\printserver\. I'm just not sure which registry keys are actually needed for this to work.

 

Thanks