I manage several classroom and lab environments where printers are assigned to computers rather than individual users. For example, Lab1 should map Printer1, Lab2 should map Printer2, and so on. Each lab has its own organizational unit, and computer-targeted Group Policy already maps the appropriate printer from our print server.
The remaining problem is making that mapped printer the default whenever anyone signs in to one of those computers, including users who have never logged on there before. I want to keep useful alternatives such as Microsoft Print to PDF and avoid removing the other installed printers. I also want to avoid paid print-management products and would prefer not to configure every user individually.
Would Group Policy Preferences in User Configuration combined with Group Policy loopback processing be the right approach? If so, should I use merge or replace mode? I have also considered a computer-configured logon scheduled task or script, but I am unsure whether that would run as the user or under the system account.
3 Answers
You can also use Group Policy Preferences with item-level targeting, filtering the printer preference by computer name, OU, or another computer-side condition. That keeps the printer assignment computer-specific, but loopback is generally the cleaner choice when an entire lab or classroom OU should receive the same user settings.
A logon PowerShell or VBScript can set the default printer, for example with the WScript.Network SetDefaultPrinter method. However, if the task is deployed through Computer Configuration, it will normally run as the computer account, not as the interactive user. The user's printer profile and permissions can therefore make this unreliable unless the script is explicitly launched in the user's logon context.
Use Group Policy loopback processing. Configure the printer and default-printer settings under User Configuration, enable loopback under Computer Configuration, and link the policy to the OU containing the lab computers. That makes the user settings apply based on the computer where the person signs in, including first-time users.
Use merge mode if you want the lab-specific settings added to the user's normal policies. Replace mode is more aggressive because it causes the computer's user-policy settings to take precedence, so use it only if that is intentional.
This is a common setup for classrooms, terminal servers, and similar shared environments. Just be careful with loopback: it changes how all user policy processing works for those computers, not only printer settings.