I am in the process of upgrading our organization's environment from Windows XP to Windows 7. We use mandatory profiles which are very convenient in an educational environment. In XP we used a combination of deploying printers via the mandatory profile and logon scripts. With Windows 7 we will continue to use mandatory profiles however I have been hung up on the best procedure to deploy printers. I am testing the capability of deploying printers via GPO as a computer policy (per machine). However it takes about 5 minutes to load all the necessary printers. ( we have about 30 network printers available) In windows XP this was done in seconds. Using scripts in Win 7 it takes just as long. What is the best method to add network printers considering the quantity of printers is >20? How are GPO deployed per-machine printers actually deployed? Do they reload every time a user logs on thus taking an extra long time? (this seems to be the case based on my testing) Thanks in advance. Jon

Deploying printers via Group Policy is a general way in this environment. The printer installation should consume more time. That is because Windows 7 need to install some printer drivers on local computer as the drivers from Windows Server 2003 is compatible with Windows XP but not compatible with Windows 7. To make the process goes faster, you may need a Windows 2008 R2 server.Arthur Xie - MSFT

We are planning to upgrade our Domain Controllers to W2k8 R2 over the next few months, how will that speed up the load time for printers during/right after logon? Or do you mean making the print server itself a Win2k8R2 box? This I can test. Do you know that the expected behavior is when the GPO is deployed per machine? Do the drivers need to load each and every time a user logs on? or is it once when the policy takes affect on the machine. I am confused about this. Also, is there any difference in deploying the printers from the print server's interface vs directly from the GPO? It seems like they both do the same thing. Jon

Well I went ahead and setup a few printers on the WIN2k8 r2 test server and found no difference. This really hampers our effort to deploy a large batch of printers. Seems like a step backwards in comparison to XP.Jon

Are all the printers are network printers that have their own IP address, or some of them are connected to a client computer or server computer? If any computer that has printer connected is a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 computer, Windows 7 need to install the driver for its own in the system when such printers are deployed . You may temporary remove these printers from the policy or script and check the result again. When you connect to printer servers, the expected behaviors are different. The behaviors based on the design of the drivers. For some printers, especially the printers that are designed for enterprise environment, the Windows 7 system do not need to install driver when the printer is deployed if the driver on the printer server works properly with Windows 7. In general situations, if a user has already log-on, the printers drivers will be installed. Then, if any user logs on at the next time, the deploy process will still run, but the system do not need to install these drivers again. So the process should finishes in seconds. However if there is any printer that is not compatible with Windows 7, the system may try to install the driver every time when the printer is deployed. Additionally, the two deploying methods, both via GPO and via script do the same thing.