Windows 7 - View Remote Printers
We have a Windows 2003 domain and a mix of Windows XP and Windows 7 PCs. I am using a Windows 7 PC. I can view a remote machines simply by typing \\computername just fine. With XP machines I can view they're locally installed printers and make changes to them. On Windows 7 clients, I cannot. I get "you do not have sufficient rights to perform this operation". I cannot view the printers on any machine nor can I add a printer to any machines. Once again...everything works fine on Windows XP clients. How can I correct this?
July 28th, 2010 4:50pm

If I understand you correctly, you want to install printers on remote devices with a Windows 7 OS on it? Then take a look at this: http://www.computing.net/answers/programming/working-remote-printer-install/18226.html
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July 28th, 2010 5:07pm

No, that's overcomplicating things a bit. I simply want to be able to, from Windows 7, view the printers on another Windows 7 machine. Right now when I view another Windows 7 machine I get 0 printers even though a computer has 3-5 printers installed. I also cannot add a printer because it states I do not have sufficient rights. New development: Strangely when I turned on 'Network Discovery' on one machine I was then able to view the printers remotely. However, doing this on another machine...there was no change. This doesn't make sense to me.
July 28th, 2010 5:14pm

Yes, I made it more difficult then it was. About not being able to find the printer, look at this one: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Enable-file-and-printer-sharing Is the user who is installing the printer administrator on the Windows 7 machine? Windows 7 does not ask for administrative rights as default. It will however ask for administrative rights if the user tries to add the printer by installing the software that came with it (CD or downloaded driver "setup.exe" usually require admin rights) or by adding a driver manually. If you need your users to be able to add their own print drivers you will have to use GPO to edit the Driver Installation policy. It is located here: Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Driver Installation The setting is called "Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these devices setup classes". You will need to add the device class GUID of printers. The GUIDs can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791134.aspx
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July 28th, 2010 10:07pm

Please double check if the "Network discovery" and "File and printer sharing" settings are turned on in all of your machines. For more information, please refer to: File and printer sharing: frequently asked questions Also, make sure your firewall allows file and printer sharing. You can also temporary disable the firewall to test the result. If the issue persists, you can refer to this article for more suggestions: Why are computers missing from the network map Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
July 30th, 2010 12:26pm

Our policy already turns off the firewalls on the local PCs...we don't use the local firewalls. Network discovery and file/print sharing is on with all the PCs. None of them are working as of now. The network mapping feature is disabled, yes. Enabling it does provide a full network map, but doesn't change the fact that I still can't 'view remote printers' and 'add a printer'. It's still blocked somehow. Windows XP machines just work. I don't understand the difficulties with Windows 7. Obviously something has changed with the default network securities somewhere. I can't find the answers anywhere...been at this for a month now. Any further suggestions would be appreciated. All I want to be able to do is view another PCs printers and be able to add or update drivers on them WITHOUT logging onto the machine using terminal services or remote desktop. As a Sys Admin this is crucial.
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July 30th, 2010 3:17pm

Nobody has an answer for this? That's scary. If Microsoft sites can't resolve issues with their own software then where am I supposed to go for help?? *frustrated*
August 3rd, 2010 8:00pm

On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 17:00:36 +0000, Jason Cirillo wrote: Nobody has an answer for this?  That's scary.  If Microsoft sites can't resolve issues with their own software then where am I supposed to go for help?? This is not Microsoft you are addressing here. This is a peer support forum. We are all just users of this version of Windows here, helping each other if and when we can. We are not Microsoft employees (not even those of us with "Microsoft MVP" behind our names; that's an honorary title for having provided consistently helpful advice) except for an occasional employee. Ken Blake
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August 3rd, 2010 10:56pm

Check if the suggestions in this article help: Troubleshoot network printer problems Also, please check this out: What are printer permissions?Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
August 4th, 2010 12:22pm

Sorry...these do not help. This has nothing to do with the printers themselves. I am not 'sharing' the printers. All of our computers onsite have 'locally' installed printers that are on our network connected via TCP/IP directly. As the systems administrator I need to be able to access these on each individual PC to update drivers/change drivers/add printer. I can do this just fine with Windows XP machines by default. Something with the Windows 7 OS is blocking my ability though. I need to find out what this is. I have already enabled file/print sharing, but this did not help. For example on a Windows XP machine from my Windows 7 machine I can simply type \\computername\ and then click on 'view remote printers' and the printer list shows for that PC. At this point I can 'add a printer' or change drivers without the user even being aware of what I'm doing since I'm not using remote desktop. This is not the case with the Windows 7. I can browse to the \\computername without error. But when I click on 'view remote printers' it shows 0 items. When I click on 'add a printer' it says 'you do not have sufficient rights to perform this operation'. This is as clear as I can be. I need to know why this isn't allowed by default like it is in Windows XP and what I can do to change it. I do not have any group policies turned on that control securities except for one that TURNS OFF UAC. These are the relevant policies and their settings: User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode [Elevate without prompting] User Account Control: Detect application installations and prompt for elevation [Disabled] User Account Control: Only elevate UIAccess applications that are installed in secure locations [Disabled] User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode [Disabled] Could any of these be interfering with the printer control? The reason for these settings is to allow our drive mappings to work on our Windows 2003 domain with Windows 7 clients.
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August 4th, 2010 2:40pm

Jason, we are having this exact issue. We were able to work around the issue by sharing one printer, then we could access all printers remotely as well as remotely add printers. As a test, we tried removing the share from the printer and restarting the computer, and after the reboot we lost remote access to the printers again. Not a perfect solution, but definitely a work around for us.
August 5th, 2010 10:32pm

To computersoftwareassociates - Yes, that certainly seems to be a workaround...thanks for the suggestion. It will have to do for now until we figure this out the 'right way'.
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August 9th, 2010 3:04pm

I have fixed this issue! Finally! On our domain we have a Group Policy we used to push the Outlook installation through. The policy was as follows: Computer Configuration, Policies, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Restricted Groups, Group (na\TempLocalAdmin) - member of 'administrators'. NA being our domain. Once I turned this group policy off the OU I was testing...each of the 3 PCs (after doing a gpupdate /force and rebooting them a couple of times) then allowed me to view/add printers again. I don't know if this will apply to anyone else, but it fixed the issue with my site. Thanks for any help provided.
August 9th, 2010 9:01pm

We have the exact same issue. I checked out any policies we have set via Computer Configuration, Policies, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Restricted Groups and we have nothing in there. I'm sure its a group policy, but I dont really know where or why. HELP!!
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September 16th, 2010 3:41pm

Hi there, I'm seeing the same problem. We don't have any policies set up in the Restricted Groups either. Network discovery is on, as is file and printer sharing.
September 24th, 2010 6:55pm

I haven't found anything on the Microsoft site. I can still access our XP machines to add, remove or edit printers. But not Vista or Windows 7. I've looked at the Group policies but I don't see anything. Is there anybody who could give insight as to why this works for XP machines but not Vista or Windows 7? I've tried stopping UAC but that didn't change anything. I'm mystified by the fact that Jason was able to fix this by disabling a group policy that I don't even have.
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September 28th, 2010 11:33am

Please try set to "Enable" this policy on the Win7 machine with local printers: Group policy - Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Printers - Allow print spooler to accept client connections I hope it will help.
December 23rd, 2010 5:45am

We've been dealing with this in our XP/7 environment on a domain and this fixed it! Thank you for the helpful solution.
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January 13th, 2011 10:03am

Your solution to Enable cleint connections by the print spooler fixed mine as well. Thanks!
March 14th, 2011 12:44pm

"Please try set to "Enable" this policy on the Win7 machine with local printers: Group policy - Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Printers - Allow print spooler to accept client connections I hope it will help." This works perfectly! Thank you! I've been trying to figure this one out for a while.. It make my job a lot easier installing printers remotely on Windows 7 workstations! - Jason
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April 13th, 2011 12:20pm

"Please try set to "Enable" this policy on the Win7 machine with local printers: Group policy - Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Printers - Allow print spooler to accept client connections I hope it will help." This worked perfectly in our mixed environment as well. Thanks for the help. -Sean
May 5th, 2011 1:39pm

Thanks tksnik. I've been looking for a solution for this for a while. Worked like a charm!
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June 13th, 2011 6:56pm

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