VMware UEM – Mapping printers via Print Server and mapping Directly

One of the key features VMware User Environment Manager(UEM) and my personal favorite is Printer mapping. It allows you to map printers based on very granular conditions like:

• Client IP address
• User groups
• Environment variables
• Registry keys

A good use case is the Location based printing where you can map printers on where you login from.

The below link shows how to map printers https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-User-Environment-Manager/9.4/com.vmware.user.environment.manager-adminguide/GUID-81CCBF43-7A6F-4ECB-811C-6A93D6A59EED.html

One thing it doesn’t really tell you whether a Printer can be mapped directly without being shared via a Print Server. It turns you can’t do that. Mapping Printers directly without a Print Server is not supported in VMware UEM.

A printer can only be mapped via UEM when shared via Print Server or at least a using Printer sharing functionality of a Windows machine.

Let’s look at a gory details.

For egs, if \\10.88.129.18\RICOH MP 501 PCL 6 is the Direct Printer and \\10.88.196.27\infotec MP 501 PCL 6 is the printer shared via Print Server, the following is what UEM async-logs say:

2018-07-17 19:20:56.692 [ERROR] Invalid printer name for printer ‘\\10.88.129.18\RICOH MP 501 PCL 6’ (‘Test-Print-direct-mapping.xml’)

2018-07-17 19:20:58.629 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer ‘\\10.88.196.27\infotec MP 501 PCL 6’ (‘Test-PrintServer-Mapping.xml’)

2018-07-17 19:20:58.629 [INFO ] Set printer as default

2018-07-17 19:20:58.629 [DEBUG] Processed 2 UEM printer mappings (1 successful, 1 error)

2018-07-17 19:20:58.629 [DEBUG] Processed 9 UEM shortcuts (9 skipped)

2018-07-17 19:20:58.629 [INFO ] Completed async UEM actions (3161 ms) [<<IFP#18dacaa7-c7b502]

You will notice that Printer mapped via Print Server gets mapped correctly and directly mapped printer show an error in the logs and does not get mapped.

Note that logs must be configured for “Debug” level like shown below. https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-User-Environment-Manager/9.3/com.vmware.user.environment.manager-adminguide/GUID-E1DF0326-EC79-4A4F-BE16-BD8BE027FFBE.html

Thanks!