Automated Naming of Printers on NetworK?

Does anybody know of a way of identifying printers on a network of Windows 10 machines?

We have an office of a few dozen Win10 workstations and 3 or 4 printers of the same model. It’s very difficult to pinpoint issues as all the printers have the same name.

Each time a workstation is added, Windows automatically installs the printer and gives it a default name. Is there a solution for this?

Thanks

3 or 4 printers? Yes, print to one and see where it comes out! Repeat as necessary. And, rename them. Or hire a professional!

I’m partial to Quentin, Gerald, Parcival, Florence and Bob

1 Like

That is so coincidental! Three out of five of those names are family names. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

1 Like

First to stop auto setup, I think the option is under advanced sharing settings in network and sharing center. I think you can also do it in the registry so it can be scripted, I do not know the key though.

If you have AD, set up a group policy with the printers you want, then push it.

Otherwise, you should be able to make a powershell script that maps and names the printers you want, just set it to run after install if you have automation of some kind, otherwise run it manually on each machine.

I should have been more clear. These printers are dumb and I can only change the name that appears within Windows. In order for the users to know which printer is where, I would have to remote into all of the workstations and manually change names. Unfortunately, between the different offices this totals about 60 workstations. :confused:

I will research this. Do you by chance know a good place to start?

Google? But, more specifically, the Microsoft documentation of powershell is pretty good, see-https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/printmanagement/rename-printer?view=win10-ps