[Samba] windows printer config management

[Brian May]

Hello,

I sent this request to my local linux user group:
<http://lists.luv.asn.au/wws/arc/luv-talk/2008-02/msg00000.html>
Unfortunately it looks like nobody is able to answer, so I will try
here:

Does anybody know of any sane solution for (globally) managing the
configuration of printers on a large number of Windows computers?

My current solution is

1. create samba server with printer shares

2. install windows printer drivers to samba server to allow automatic
installation

3. on windows computer, drivers have to be installed from the samba server,
   * installation of drivers as non-administrator won't work
   * log in as administrator, install printer, which tries to install driver.
   * first time, windows complains that the server doesn't have the drivers.
   * retry, it works perfectly on second try.
   * log as administrator, log it as user, printer doesn't exit.
   * install printer again as user, this time it uses the existing drivers.

4. if any changes required, e.g. printer is replaced, repeat then on
every computer for every user.

This is insane. Ok, so maybe I should be able to fix the problem with
the driver installation not working the first time (any ideas?), but
this is only a small step in the entire process.

cups makes this so much easier :-(.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
-- 
Brian May <bam at snoopy.apana.org.au>