HOW TO: Solve printing problems via RDP #1

RDS Easy Print (previously TS Easy Print) in all its glory but sometimes you may look at problems printing when using the RDS Easy Print driver. Starting with Windows Vista and specifically RDP 6.0 it is possible to connect to remote machines via RDP and automatically get the locally installed printers available in the RDP/TS/RDS session. Previously one had to match the printers drivers with being the exact same on both the local and remote machine. This is done with something called a RDS/TS Easy Print printer driver.

In a few cases I have seen that printing does not work as expected when using the RDS Easy Print printer driver making the printer for example pause, print, pause, print and so on when printing a multiple page document.

The sweet thing here is that with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 comes a new group policy setting that allows us to first try to match the local print driver with a remote (the old fashioned way) before using the RDS Easy Print driver. The setting to activate this is named Use Remote Desktop Easy Print printer driver first and is found in Computer configuration – Administrative templates – Windows Components – Remote Desktop Services – Remote Desktop Session Host – Printer Redirection. Set it to disabled to make use of the “real” print driver first.