If your organization provides Windows 7 laptops to users and configures their user accounts as standard users who are not local admins on their computers, and then at the end of the day the users go home and try to connect to their home printers to print work-related documents, they may be frustrated to discover they can’t connect to their home printers because they don’t have sufficient privileges to be able to install new printer drivers on their computers. What can you do to allow them to connect to their home printers without making them local admins on their computers?
Configure the following two Group Policy settings:
- Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Driver Installation\Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these devices setup classes
- Enabled
- Device class GUID of printers: {4d36e979-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
- Computer Configuration/Policies/Administrative Templates/Printers/Point and Print Restrictions
- Enabled
- Security Prompts: When Installing Drivers for a new connection = Do not show warning or elevation prompt
The above tip was previously published in an issue of WServerNews, a weekly newsletter from TechGenix that focuses on the administration, management and security of the Windows Server platform in particular and cloud solutions in general. Subscribe to WServerNews today by going to http://www.wservernews.com/subscribe.htm and join almost 100,000 other IT professionals around the world who read our newsletter!
Mitch Tulloch is an eleven-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award and a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud computing technologies. Mitch is also Senior Editor of WServerNews. For more information about him see http://www.mtit.com.
