Windows failed to apply the Deployed Printer Connections settings.

Question

I am experiencing an issue with Deployment of Printers from GPO. This just started last week after I replaced existing 2012r2 DC and 2012R2 Print Server with New 2019 DC and Print Server If a user had already gotten their printers from GPO they are present and work. If a user needs printers to load from GPO they will not. When we run gpupdate /force we get this "Windows failed to apply the Deployed Printer Connections settings. Deployed Printer Connections settings might have its own log file. Please click on the "More information" link."

All other GPOs are processing and working properly.

I have 4 other DCs (3 - 2012r2 and 1 -2019) and 3 other Print Servers (2 - 2012R2 and 1 - 2019) Workstations are all Win10 assorted flavors (1908 through 21H2)

Since I list all printers in the Directory. I can still install the printers manually from the Printer Servers through "Add Printer" and they install without issue even for none admin users.

Microsoft has really made a mess with this recent security update. Did they ever test this with GPO deployment of printers before dumping it out there?

Anyone else seeing this behavior? Has anyone fixed this behavior?

Answer 1

I do fully agree - no solutions works.

I'm getting more reports from users about disappearing printers - yesterday they had printers, today they gone... I only assume that gp have updated automatically and couldn't redeploy printers, that's why they are gone.

I will try to switch gp per device rather than user and check if that will work as the temp solution - in that case it will be much easier than installing the printers manually.

Any chance we can give our users admin rights only for printers? Maybe that could sort out the problem.

Any help from MS?

Answer 2

So I ran into this issue as well recently and the only workaround I found was to set the user as a local admin on the machine they were using.

Once they were set as an administrator, ran GPUpdate /force, logged out and logged back in and all of the printers installed. Not a great solution, as it involved touching every machine but at least I can get it installed.

Answer 3

A technician of us found the following solution to this:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\PointAndPrint" /v RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Adding the above registry key to the client seems to have solved the issue. The queue is deployed automatically and the error message when doing a gpupdate is gone.

Solutions found on:
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3630629/windows-print-nightmare-continues-enterprise.html

We are not sure about the security aspects of this solution. It may however be a better one than giving local admin rights.

Answer 4

I started having similar problems a few weeks ago. Some users started asking for elevation to install the print server driver, something that didn't happen before. Other users from different OUs did not experience the problem.

I checked the GPOs and they are identical, the difference is the OR of each user. Printers have no security restriction, everyone can print to them.

RSOP fails 0x800702e4 in GPO deployment. I don't have the updates installed on the machines, I don't know what to do anymore. All printers are installed by machine and non-user permissions.

Anyone with any solution to help me?

Answer 5

RalfAzevedo-5486, imo this problem has nothing to do with GPO. Windows updates - you can read a lot about, there is option to turn it off, but its on your risk. I had to install the updates by myself on most devices, so far its not asking to repeat this task. If you have a chance to do it manually, get to each PC try to print test page and if it will ask for permission than accept it with admin login.