Group Policy & Printers - How do you deploy yours?

[Hulkster]

I'm curious as we have a few ways based on machine type and OU. For older machines on XP without Client Side Extensions there are scripts. For newer machines with Windows 7, we use Preferences via Server 2008 R2 Group Policy.

There is also the option within a print server to "Deploy via Group Policy" which also works nicely with Windows 7.

What's the main difference between using the "Deploy via Group Policy" option and Preferences? Is one better? I prefer the Preferences because it's so easy and works really well.

Can XP machines without CSE's process the GPO when the "Deploy" option is used?

 

[ashrobbo]

We use Group Policy preferences on all clients here (we have XP with CSE's installed) and the few windows 7 clients we have work flawlessly.

we still run scripts for an older windows 2000 terminal server (dumb accounts system!)

We find GPP very quick, and works every time, the event logging tracing is a great feature too. Love working with it because of the easy to use GUI, was never a fan of notepad and scripting.

Cant comment on depoying via standard GPO though.

 

[Chronictank]

Group Policy preferences, although we use universal drivers as our printers (and faxes) are all being consolidated into Network ones

Admittedly xp ones we still use printmig built into the image (due to the above only having 3 queues)