Windows Remote Desktop Printer Redirection Problems – Clever Solution
You want to print to your local printer (redirect) when connected to a remote Windows PC through Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) but the printer refuses to show up on the remote PC’s Printer’s list.
Symptoms
- The Event Viewer may be showing an error relating to Term or TermServDevices similar to the screenshot below.
- You successfully connected to a remote Windows PC through RDC but your local printer is not showing up as an icon in Control Panel > Printers Faxes or in the Print dialog in any application.
- Other Local resources such as Disk Drives show up and are accessible without any problems
- Other printers installed on the remote PC (if any) have no known problems
- The printer you are using may be a local USB printer or a network printer
Explanation
The remote desktop printer problem happens because either:
- the Printers check box is not selected in the Local Resources tab of remote desktop and/or
- if it is selected, the correct printer driver is not installed on the remote PC
If you have an error showing in your event viewer of the remote computer similar to the screen shot above then it’s likely that you need the correct printer driver installed. The steps below should sort it.
Step 1 – Enable Printer as a Local Resource
Perform these steps on the local computer
- On the local PC, open Remote Desktop Connection (RDC)
- Enter the address you want to connect to
- Click Options
- Click the Local Resources tab
- Place a check mark in Printers in the Local devices and resources section.
- Click Connect, enter your username and password details if required and allow it to bring up the desktop
- On the remote PC, check to see if the printer is visible as an icon in the Control Panel > Printers screen
- If the printer installed correctly then you’re finished! If not, then continue to Step 2
Step 2 – Install the printer driver on the remote PC
Perform these steps on the remote computer
- Firstly verify if you need to install the printer driver on the remote PC by checking that the printer driver is the problem as described in the symptoms section of this article.
- The easiest way to get the printer drivers installed in the correct place in Windows is by installing a dummy local printer on the Remote PC.
- Click Start > Printer & Faxes
- Click Add Printer
- Click Next > select Local Printer
- Uncheck Automatically detect and install my plug and play printer > Click Next
- Select a Printer Port: select Use the following port: FILE: (print to file) > Click Next
- Click Have Disk
- Browse to the location of the printer driver for the printer you are trying to use, select the INF file and click OK
- Select the printer from the list and click Next
- Give the printer a name select that it should not be the default printer > Click Next
- Select Do Not Share This Printer > Click Next
- Do not print a test page (it’s only a dummy printer!) > Click Next
- Click Finish – Windows will now copy all the required drivers and complete the install.
- Disconnect from your RDC session by clicking Start > Disconnect
- Reconnect to the remote PC through RDC
- Check the Printers list – you should have 2 printers installed now (in addition to any other printers on the remote PC of course); the dummy one and the real one.
- You should be able to tell the real one from the dummy one because the dummy one will have a little picture of a disk beside the printer icon.
You will probably have to download the printer driver from the manufacturers website to the remote PC and store them in a folder somewhere convenient such as the desktop. Links to the major printer manufacturers driver download pages are available below.
The directions worked and were very easy to follow.
WOW. This works! Had to read through a bunch of sites before I found a working solution.
Seriously, this was the best article I have ever read, this got everything working perfect!
Great Proposed Solution!
Thanks a lot
Thanks again
Wow… Needed this solution. It was perfectly laid out… I got my client up and running in less then 30 minutes doing everything remotely. Microsoft had a tech article about this, but didnt explain when ONE printer was missing… Fixed them all up thanks to this post which I will bookmark for later.
Thanks,
Jason
just amazing.
after hours i came to this great article.
thanks so much
Thank You!!!
This was the answer I was looking for.
Well explained and straight to the point.
Thank you, very good article and solution.
Thank you for simple explanation .
vielen herzlichen Dank für die Lösung des Problemes.
Hat sofort alles bestens funktioniert.
Karl-Heinz
Thank you for ending a frustrating morning with a well-explained solution!
Hi,
we also had the same problem with using our local printer to print
to remote desktop sessions. We got Tsprint software which is very nice. It’s a universal printing driver. Zero configuration needed in your Server and workstation.
Hi,
this works great, google should put it on first site, it would save me hour of surfing betwen useless solutions, thanks a lot..
I’m no longer certain the place you are getting your information, but great topic. I needs to spend some time studying much more or figuring out more. Thank you for great information I was on the lookout for this info for my mission.
It’s really a cool and helpful piece of info. I am glad that you just shared this useful information with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.
This solution did not work for me — nothing has worked for me — I am running MAC OX2 with RDC 2.1.1 trying to connect to remote server 1,000 miles away (Server 2008 R2) and none of my printers are re-directing – I’ve tried all the steps above, spent a week researching, no luck — installed drivers on the Server 2008, that didn’t work either. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thank you.
Hi TJS-SFO…I presume when you say ‘MAC OX2′ that you mean ‘MAC OSX’ ?
Can you give me an example of a printer that is not redirecting?
I’ve just tries this very configuration on Mac OSX connecting to a Windows 2008 server with a Samsung ML-1670 laser printer even without installing the drivers on the Win 2008 server.
R.
Hi rosco : thanks for your response
With my xp machines that we log in with you need to hve most recent version of rdc and net frame loaded for printer redirection to work on server 2008. Problem with Mac is there’s no net frame
The printers initially were getting redirected with the Mac running most recent 2.1.1 rdc and then all of a suddenly it stopped and no matter what we do we can’t get them back
I tried installing drivers on server and using file : as the port and that didn’t help (per instructions on other boards)
Another strange thing server 2008 does is add the session name to the name of the printer and that increments each time you log in
For instance I was able to initially see the hp2600n that’s connected to our microsoft office network in San Fran when I logged into the server 2008 in Los Angeles via rdc on the Mac and each time I logged I’m the name of the printer had a number next to printer name that increased by one each time with some wording in front of it like remote session X or something like that.
If you have a Mac and tried logging into my server remotely chances are your printer would be redirected initially (assuming you’re using latest rdc 2.1.1 for Mac) but after a few log ins it will stop and won’t show up anymore.
Anyway I have clue why the Mac osX and most recent version of RDC can’t redirect the printers with server 2008 … Any help would be appreciated
Thank you very much.
Your article helps me to resolve my problem.
Awesome worked like a charm!
Anyone know a solution for RDP session on windows 7 pro not showing local printers, however same session on a windows XP Pro machine will show the local printers? All settings are the exact same..