Normal user cannot add a network printer on a Terminal Server

By default Windows 2000 and 2003 terminal services does not allow a non administration account to add a printer when they log onto a remote desktop connection. When they do attempt to install a printer the user gets the following error message.

You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer.

To allow users to add a network printer either manually or via a logon script you will need to do the following:

1. Open up local security policy by clicking “Start -> Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy“.
2. Open Local Policies
3. Open Security Policies
4. On the Right hand side double-click “Prevent users from installing printer drivers”
5. Click on Disabled and then Ok and then Close the Local Security Policy window.
6. Reboot the computer

Apparently you can do a gpupdate /force (win 2003) or a secedit /REFRESHPOLICY MACHINE_POLICY /enforce (windows 2000) instead of rebooting but I have not tried that myself and its been just as easy to reboot the server.

You can also set this setting on the Terminal Servers OU through group policy if you have multiple Terminal Servers to save time.

Reset all user passwords within an ou to the same password

A quick and easy way to reset all the passwords for users in a particular OU is to run the following command in a command prompt window on the domain controller. The below will reset all the passwords to “password”.  Change your OU references to your own settings.

C:\>dsquery user OU=tech,OU=australia,DC=waynestorey,DC=com | dsmod user -pwd password

If you have more than 100 users within that OU then use the following command changing the number after -limit to a number greater than the number of user objects

C:\>dsquery user -limit 100 OU=australia,OU=tech,DC=waynestorey,DC=com | dsmod user -pwd password

Add a static route to Windows

To add a static route to windows you can use the route command:

To view the existing routes on a machine. Open a command prompt and type the following:

route print

To add a static route:

route add <target> mask <netmask> <gateway IP> metric <metric cost> if <interface>

eg. route add 192.168.1.0 mask 255.255.255.0 10.10.1.1 metric 1

The above static route will only be available till the machine in rebooted. To add a persistane route (one that lives after a reboot of the machine) add the -p switch to the command.

eg. route -p add 192.168.1.0 mask 255.255.255.0 10.10.1.1 metric 1

The following registry key holds the values for static routes.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\PersistentRoutes

As with other command prompt commands you can view all the options this command offers by typing route /? at the command prompt.