Prune printers that are not automatically republished

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Printers

Description

Determines whether the system prunes (deletes from Active Directory) printers that are not automatically republished. This policy applies to printers running operating systems other than Windows 2000 and to Windows 2000 printers published outside of their domain.

The Windows 2000 pruning service prunes printer objects from Active Directory when the computer that published them does not respond to contact requests. Computers running Windows 2000 detect and republish deleted printer objects when they rejoin the network. However, because non–Windows 2000 computers and computers in other domains cannot republish printers in Active Directory automatically, then, by default, the system never prunes their printer objects.

You can enable this policy to change the default behavior. To use this policy, select one of the following options from the Prune non-republishing printers box:

• Never specifies that printer objects that are not automatically republished are never pruned. Never is the default.
• Only if Print Server is found prunes printer objects that are not automatically republished only when the print server responds, but the printer is unavailable.
• Whenever printer is not found prunes printer objects that are not automatically republished whenever the host computer does not respond, just as it does with Windows 2000 printers.

Note

This policy applies to printers published by using Active Directory Users and Computers or Pubprn.vbs. It does not apply to printers published by using Printers in Control Panel.

Tip

If you disable automatic pruning, remember to delete printer objects manually whenever you remove a printer or print server.