Printer name changes on a mass scale?

[Uconn411]

Hey Guys,

My company is relocating buildings. The printers use static IPs. The locations (i.e. floors) are changing for some of the depts. I only need the printer name changed so people can identify it.
Right now, all the computers have the same list of about 15 printers installed on them. Any way I can do some sort of a batch file to update the names? I tried editing the reg, but noticed that the simple printer name change affects about 15 different parts of the registry.

Thx for any insight.

 

[HKSturboKID]

We recently have a similar change and what we have to do is go into the printer server and manually change them one by one.

 

[Uconn411]

There has to be a way to automate through a batch script. I just haven't found anything yet....

 

[TGS]

Can you just copy out the registry entries and put them out on a network share?

 

[GeekDrew]

I've personally only done printer deployments using ZenWorks, so I'm not of *too much* help... but might it be easier to delete and reinstall the printer with a new name, rather than try a rename operation?

Just a thought.

 

[gaidin123]

Look at rundll32 printui.dll. Using that along with a few flags in a simple script you can globally add and delete mapped printers for any given machine on a machine by machine basis. There may be a more efficient way to manage printers (I believe the R2 release of Windows server 2003 has some new print management feature but you have to pay for the upgrade) but this has worked well for us for a while.

If you have an AD all you should need to do is set a machine or user logon script to globally delete all the current mapped printers and then globally add all the new printer names. Fortunately in your case all the machines have the same printers mapped...

Gaidin

Edit: Go here for info.
Example: rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /c\\%1 /n\\server.domain.com\%2
%1=Computer name you want to add the printer(s) to
%2=Printer share name
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /? gives you a ridiculous amount of examples and command flags