Had an interesting question from a reader in response to setting a default printer with Group Policy Preferences that I thought I would share.

Question was:
If you set a user general default printer like the main office copier but also set a location printer preference like the library copier using the loop back policy will it over ride the general default printer preference?

Do I merge or replace?

I decided to test this out as I have not come across this. Here is what I found, if you have a User Policy that is creating a printer connection and setting it as the default and you also have, using Loopback Policy Processing in Merge Mode, another User Policy being applied, this will override the first User Policy Settings. Both printers will be installed, but the default printer will be set to the one specified in the policy that has the loopback.

Note: I tested this on a client that has no printers installed

If Loopback Processing is in Replace Mode then the User Settings in that policy will “Replace” the settings in the other policy. Therefore only one printer will be installed and it will be set as default.

Hope that helps.

Simple scenario, we have a group of Media students that need a drive mapped to a different “Media Backup Server”, so what I have done is put these students into and Active Directory Group called “Media Students”.

So in my Students GPO I simply went to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Drive Maps

Right Click Drive Maps and select New > Mapped Drive Select Create from the drop down menu, enter the path to the share (eg. \\server\share ), I have created folders that relate to the students username therefore I used the %username% variable, select the Drive Letter.

Then from the Common tab up the top tick Item Level Targeting, from the New Item Menu select Security Group, make sure User In Group is selected in the bottom window and browse for the Security Group that the user must be a member of.

All Done, now all students that are a member of the Media Security Group will get an M Drive Mapped.

Cheers

Daniel Anderson
Loving Group Policy Preferences