Hundreds of printers showing in Devices and Printers but not in CMD, Powershell or Print Server Properties - Windows Server 2012r2 and Windows Server 2019 Terminal Servers

Question

I have 2 customers, both on Windows Terminal Server Farms.
One is on Windows Server 2012r2, and their print server is running Windows Server 2008r2 (I know, we are planning on decomming it)
One is on Windows Server 2019, with a 2019 print server

Both of these customers have an issue where there are hundreds of printers showing in control panel > devices and printers, but only on the RDS servers.
The print servers themselves are fine.
Trying to investigate these printers shows that they are not visible in CMD when using "wmic printer list brief" or in Powershell when using "Get-Printer" or "Get-PrinterPort" or in the Ports list in "Print server properties"

In both instances, the printers are deployed via group policy.

Only the valid print queues are showing in print dialogs in apps like Word or Adobe Reader

I'm at a bit of a loss here.

Answer 1

Hello

Thank you for your question and reaching out. I can understand you are having issues related to duplicate RDS printers are showing.

1. Please try to add the following registry value and check if the duplicated printers would disappear:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider\RemovePrintersAtLogoff = 1 (DWORD)
2. When setting up sharing of a new printer, uncheck: Render Print Jobs to Client Computers found on the Sharing tab of the printer properties.
3. Reboot Server.

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