I’ve just finished putting together a knowledge base article detailing various methods to manage and configure printers in a school or university (academic environment). In a business environment a user normally has a desktop PC dedicated to them located on their work desk. In an academic environment users will roam between different computer labs and locations. The printers listed under Start->Settings->Printers should change depending on what computer they are using. For example, it is not appropriate to list the science lab printer when the user is login in across campus in the library! In other words, the list of printers is a function of location rather than user identity.

I’ve taken a few techniques used by a number of network administrator running PaperCut and written it up in general terms. Thanks to all that took the time to write up how they approached printer connection/setup management. You can read the article at http://kb.papercutsoftware.com/Main/AddingPrintersInAnEducationEnvironment.