How do I use a mapped network drive as the Output Folder for the Terminal Server printer driver?

 

The Black Ice printer drivers support using the contents of an Environment Variable for the name of the output directory. In order to set up this scenario, log on to the user account, go to Control Panel/Printers right click on the Black Ice driver and open the Printing Preferences. Go to the Filename Generation tab and enter the name of the environment variable to the Output Folder fields between the "<<" and ">>" signs, like this: <<BlackIceOutput>>

 

From each user's logon script set the Environment Variable to contain the required output folder (which can be different from user to user), rather than mapping the folder as a new drive.

 

When each user prints, the printer driver will extract the contents of the Environment Variable and will generate the files to the folder specified in the Environment Variable. The system account will not know about drives mapped by the users, that is why you have to use the Environment Variable.

 

The printer driver runs on the system account. If you are mapping network drives, the system account may not have write rights to that network drive.  By logging on as administrator to the console and mapping the network drive for the administrator on the console it may solve the problem with the system account access privileges.