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- Windows Server 2008/2003/2000/XP/NT Administrator Knowledge Base
  - Windows 2003
    - Admin Tips
      - Terminal Servers and Thin Clients
        Disabling Printer Mapping Terminal Services

Section(s): Terminal Servers and Thin Clients
Published on Apr 01, 2008.
Last Modified on Apr 01, 2008.
Last Modified by Chris Sanders.
Rating: Not Rated

Terminal Services allows to ability to map printers from remotely connected clients into terminal sessions. Although this has its place, it may cause some problems. Here is how to stop it.

It is common practice in a Terminal Services environment to allow users to map their printers through a terminal session so that they can print to local printers from the terminal server. This has its place, but in large terminal environments this can cause performance issues to abound. The best method of printing in these scenarios is to have shared network printers for terminal use and local printers strictly for printing on the local machine.

When doing this, you will need to disable the mapping of printers for your terminal server. To do this, first open the Terminal Services Configuration MMC snap-in, located in the Administrative Tools dialog. Right click the default RDP-Tcp connection and go to Properties. Navigate to the Client Settings tab, and click the checkbox to disable LPT port mapping. This will immediately take effect on the server, but will require all currently logged in users to log out and reconnect.

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Chris Sanders is a network consultant for KeeFORCE, one of the most popular network consulting firms in western Kentucky. Chris is the author of the book Practical Packet Analysis as well as several technical articles. His personal website at www.chrissanders.org contains a great deal of information, articles, and guides related to network administration, network security, packet analysis, and general information technology.

About Chris Sanders

Chris Sanders is a network consultant for KeeFORCE, one of the most popular network consulting firms in western Kentucky. Chris is the author of the book Practical Packet Analysis as well as several technical articles. His personal website at www.chrissanders.org contains a great deal of information, articles, and guides related to network administration, network security, packet analysis, and general information technology.