[Legacy] Enabling user client notifications on Windows when balloon tips are disabled

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Watch out, legacy content ahead! PaperCut historically has been able to leverage Microsoft’s WinPopup feature to send messages to Windows clients over the network, which has worked for many customers as an alternative to running the PaperCut User Client, however you should know that WinPopup has been officially deprecated for some time so we do not recommend considering this option for any new installations.

When the user client tool in PaperCut NG/MF is installed on a Windows system, it delivers notifications using balloon tips by default.

If you have disabled balloon tips (e.g. by using Group Policy), PaperCut NG/MF will not be able to display notifications from the client tool. You may hear the standard windows ‘pop’ sound when a notification arrives, but nothing will be displayed. There are two options to get notifications working: 1) enable balloon tips, or 2) make the client tool deliver notifications using standard dialogs instead of balloon tips.

Note, if you’re looking for information on how to disable Windows Print Notifications, take a look through the Disabling Windows Print Notifications article.

1. Re-enabling balloon tips

a) Via Group Policy (if using Active Directory, recommended method)

1. Open the Group Policy Object Editor for the group in question

2. Browse to User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Start Menu and Taskbar

3. Find the setting Remove Balloon Tips on Start Menu Items

4. Double-click on the setting and change the status to Disabled or Not configured

b) Via Group Policy Custom Administrative Template

Note: This method should be used if the one above fails.

1. Download the BalloonTips.adm template from here. You can also view a screen-cast of the process here. (special thanks to Daniel for the contribution)

2. Open Group Policy editor

3. Edit the relevant GPO

4. Right Click on User Configuration→Administrative Templates

5. Choose Add/Remove Templates and add the new balloontips.adm

6. Then Right click again on Administrative Templates - Choose View/Filtering and untick “Only show policy settings that can be fully managed”

c) Via the registry (advanced)

1. Open the Registry Editor’ on the system in question

2. Find the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER → Software → Microsoft → Windows → CurrentVersion → Explorer → Advanced

3. Look for the value EnableBalloonTips. If it exists, change its value to 2, or remove the value completely, to re-enable balloon tips.

2. Forcing the client tool to deliver notifications using dialogs

The client tool can be forced to deliver notifications using standard windows dialogs instead of balloon tips. This can be done on an individual system when the client tool is installed locally, or for all systems by modifying the version of the client available on the network share.

To force standard dialogs, you can use the user client option called disable-balloon-tips. This option can also be set by adding a disable-balloon-tips=Y line (or uncommenting the existing line) to the client config.properties file located at [app-path]/client/win/.

An alternate option (advanced) is to enable this with the pc-client.exe start command-line option —disable-balloon-tips (e.g. place in your startup script or Group Policy start command).

Restart the client tool(s) and send a test notification. The notification should now appear in a standard dialog instead of a balloon tip.

A customer’s experience

In early 2015 PaperCut Technical Support was contacted by one customer whose users were looking for a better work flow in that even after clicking “Cancel” on the PaperCut User Client, there was a Windows Print Notification balloon that said the document had been sent to the printer.

Refining this workflow required two main actions:

1. You can turn off the Windows Print “Informational Notifications” via the Windows Printer Server Properties, however this is on a per-machine basis and not controlled by the Windows Print Server.

In this situation the customer was able to create/update, via Group Policy Objects, the registry key in:

Path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Settings
Name: EnableBalloonNotificationsRemote
Value type: REG_DWORD.
Value data: 0. Base: Hexadecimal.

disable-balloon-tips=Y

This results in notifications from the PaperCut User Client that require acknowledgement before they’re dismissed rather than the balloon notifications that sometimes fade out before a user notices them.