[Samba] roaming profiles ok, but what about the printers?

[Andreas Paulick]

Hi there,

We have a little intranetwork with Samba 3.0.x as PDC. There are 20 
Win2k-clients in several rooms and 18 users roaming from one machine to 
another (according to their tasks). So any user has a roaming profile. 
This runs almost perfect (some minor problems are still there, but the 
the advantages are overwelming).
But there is one thing, I can't understand. Why does Win2k saves the 
printer information (esp. the default printer) in the user area of the 
registry? All my users want to print on the nearest printer they can 
reach. In any room is a laser printer, every printer has a build-in 
print-server. If a user logs on to a machine in a room, they want to use 
the printer in this room as default.
They havent an most beloved default printer, that they uses whereever 
they are. But unfortunately this is the behavior of Win2k. A user keep 
the printer he chooses as the default printer, no matter which client he 
uses.
Sure its easy to change the default printer in the printer wizard, but 
we have some Software, that doesn't recognize this (esp. UPS Wordship).
I found this Idea: network-wide there will be known only 3 Printers:
-Laser printer
-Laser printer tray #2        (for heading printed paper)
-Label printer
These are printer queues at the Samba-server running CUPS.
A print to this queue will be redirected to the approriate printer, 
depending on the IP of the printing client. So a print to the laser 
printer from any client of room #A will be printed at the laser printer 
in room#A without hassle with printer settings at the client.
I think of a custom print command with %I and a table to translate IP 
vs. real printer. But my bash skills are limited.

But i don't know how to do this. I believe there are other admins out 
there with the same problem.
How have you solved this?

thanks in advantage
Andy Paulick