Connect client drives and printers at logon

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

To connect client drives and printers at logon

  • Using Group Policies (best practice)

  • Using Terminal Services Configuration

Using Group Policies (best practice)

  1. Open Group Policy.

  2. In Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Terminal Services, Client/Server data redirection double-click the specific setting for the feature you want to configure, and then click Enabled.

    • To disable the mapping of client printers in Terminal Services sessions, enable Do not allow client printer redirection.

    • To disable the mapping of client drives in Terminal Services sessions, enable Do not allow client drive redirection.

    • To disable the setting of the default client printer as the default printer in Terminal Services sessions, enable Do not set default client printer to be default printer in a session.

    Important

    • You should thoroughly test any changes you make to Group Policy settings before applying them to users or computers. For more information on testing policy settings, see Resultant Set of Policy.

Note

  • Use the above procedure to configure the local Group Policy object. To change a policy for a domain or an organizational unit, you must log on to the primary domain controller as an Administrator. Then, you must invoke Group Policy through the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in.

Using Terminal Services Configuration

  1. Open Terminal Services Configuration.

  2. In the console tree, click Connections.

  3. In the details pane, right-click the connection to which you want to connect client drives and printers, and then click Properties.

  4. On the Client Settings tab, under Connection, clear the Use connection settings from user settings check box.

    This allows you to configure these settings for the connection.

  5. Choose from the following options:

    • Select the Connect client drives at logon check box to reconnect to all mapped client drives while logging on. (This option is supported for clients running any of the Windows Server 2003 family operating systems.)

    • Select the Connect client printers at logon check box to reconnect to all mapped local client printers while logging on.

    • Select the Default to main client printer check box to print to the default printer of the client. Otherwise, the default printer of the server is used as the default printer for all client sessions.

    Notes

    • To open Terminal Services Configuration, click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Terminal Services Configuration.

    • These settings affect all clients that use the connection to log on to a terminal server. If you want to define settings on a per-user basis, use Terminal Services Group Policies or the Terminal Services Extension to Local Users and Groups.

Notes

  • To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority. If the computer is joined to a domain, members of the Domain Admins group might be able to perform this procedure. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure. For more information, see Default local groups, Default groups, and Using Run as.

  • Group Policy overrides the configuration set with the Terminal Services Configuration tool.

Information about functional differences

  • Your server might function differently based on the version and edition of the operating system that is installed, your account permissions, and your menu settings. For more information, see Viewing Help on the Web.

See Also

Concepts

Configure settings for mapping client devices
Managing drive, printer, and device mappings for clients
Make your local disk drives available in a session
Configuring Terminal Services with Group Policy
Group Policy (pre-GPMC)