Issues with terminal server redirected printers

[CH_PaladinBC]

Okay, first off... 

When our users go to print, from inside of EasyAcct, all the previous printers, including network printers that no longer live on the network, old printers that are no longer physically deployed, and even temporary redirected printers, are all showing up in the drop down list. 

This is causing the machines to lock up, trying to process 100's if not 1000's of printers, some machines hang for 5 to 15 minutes, just trying to process all of these old printers. 

Needless to say, the end users are losing their calm, to put it mildly. 

It also seems to be a profile / user specific issue... so I am hoping for a registry edit or file delete option to resolve this. 

Things we have done on our end... 

We made sure that the terminal servers are working properly, and the redirected printers are removed, when the users log off. 

We've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the product, which does nothing. *This was recommended by support, but does absolutely NOTHING to remove the old printer entries*

So, as I wait, for 30 minutes to an hour, for a response / call back, from Intuit, I'm hoping that perhaps one of you has had the same issue, and can help me resolve it. 

[CH_PaladinBC]

Also, just as an FYI, once I get a resolution that works, I'm going to post it here, so someone else doesn't have to struggle with this issue in the future. 

[qbteachmt]

Are you the network admin or server manager?

Without knowing your specifics, this seems like it could be GPO (group policy), web services, device discovery, device sharing, any of a number of things. You have some sort of auto-install, sharing, or conflicting sharing from both peer user profiles and server.

You can search the web on "phantom printer" or "ghost printer" to see similar descriptions.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1179270/cant-delete-ghost-printers-on-windows-se...

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2359864-ghost-printers-getting-added-somehow

https://serverfault.com/questions/796147/phantom-printers-on-windows

[CH_PaladinBC]

Okay, the road so far... and what I've learned via tech support, and a response to your questions...

We are on a load balanced Terminal Server environment, with 5 total servers, three of which are load balanced, and one is a standalone... 

We are using printer redirection... I'm personally voting for using TSPrint here, to resolve some other printing / print speed issues... but this isn't really the main issue. 

The servers have, buried deep in their registries, every redirected printer, that has ever existed, for a moment... hoping we can put in a GPO to simply remove any redirected printers at user log off... 

I went on a registry hunt, and found a TON of redirected printers.... we're talking thousands, plural here...  but none of the other programs hosted on the terminal servers, see any of these printers, at all, just the most recently redirected, if that makes sense. 

I'm sure there's going to be some "manual registry cleanup" I'm going to have to do, after "inheriting" this "mess". 

All that being said, it seems to be both user profile, and program specific to EasyAcct. 

I passed this on to tech support, and here's a possible solution they gave. I'll have to repeat this process on all terminal servers, to see if it makes any difference. 

Tech support said that the file deletion SHOULD resolve the issue, but, I know my luck. 😄

Per Tech Support this morning... 

Uninstall Printer using Registry Editor

The Windows Registry is the collection of Windows Settings’ databases. It is in this Windows Registry that the settings of most software programs and hardware are stored. The Registry Editor is the gateway to making edits or scanning the existing program settings. This, too, can be used to uninstall printers from your Windows 10 PC.

• In the Run command, type regedit.exe and press enter to open the Registry Editor.
• In order to locate the printers linked with your computer, enter the following key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Printers\Roamed

• Use the following key, then.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

• This will help present you with the list of printers, from where you can right-click the particular printer and click ‘Delete.’

1. If necessary, search for the EZPRTSET.DAT file located in the C:\EASYW folder and delete it.
2. Reset the Print Preferences.

[CH_PaladinBC]

Okay...

I created a reg file to do this... 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider]
"InactiveGuidPrinterAge"=dword:00000384
"ActiveGuidPrinterAge"=dword:00000384
"InactiveGuidPrinterTrim"=dword:00000384
"RemovePrintersAtLogoff"=dword:00000001

Then, I created a bat file, to do the following, on user log off from the terminal server. 

reg delete "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Devices" /f /va
reg delete "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PrinterPorts" /f /va

You MAY want to add this line, but I didn't find it necessary...

reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider\Servers" /f /va

You'll probably have to elevate privileges if you push in the last line... 

I loaded this up as a GPO, so it happens everytime someone logs off. 

Next, tackling the servers... 

Stop the print spooling service, if you can... 

Clean up the USERS\.DEFAULT\Printers key on all existing servers

You'll need some tools. 

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/regscanner.html

I used the 64 bit version of this, to scour my registry for any redirected printers, in the users key

I found 45,000 redirected printers in this key alone, on three servers... 

Just use the regscanner to look for the word redirected, and delete them all... you'll have to run the regscanner program as administrator to do this. 

Do the same thing, for this key... 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider\Servers

Once all of them run, without any more detections of the word "redirected" you should be golden. 

I used regscanner, so I wouldn't delete actual printers, just all the blasted "redirected" printers, that simply would NOT go away.