We give our staff instructions on adding printers to their computer by using the Find Printer in the directory, based on location or feature Control Panel tool. Because all of our printers have a location attribute set, our users see just the printers in their building or in their department.
After years of using this method, I just found out that I can create printer searching shortcuts for my staff!! With one click, they see the printers available to them. To create a Find Printers shortcut, copy this code and save it as Printers.qds
[CommonQuery] Handler=5EE6238AC231D011891C00A024AB2DBBC1 Form=70F077B5E27ED011913F00AA00C16E65DB [DsQuery] ViewMode=0413000017 EnableFilter=0000000000
Double click on the Printer.QDS file and the Find Printers window should open. Add any custom searches (location, duplexing, etc.) and then select File – Save Search.
You should then be prompted to save a new .QDS file. Generate as many of these as you need and then make it easy for your users to find them. For example, deploy site-specific ones to the default Programs directory so that users can quickly see it in the Start Screen/Menu.
Until this day have not seen anyone else teach this nugget! thank you so much!
One of the best nuggets I’ve found on the internet. Thank you!
Thank you for letting me know, Tom!
I created the shortcut as directed but I get an error ” FindPrinter.qds is not accessible. The file contents may be corrupt or the file may not be a valid Acitve Directory Domain Service query.” Do I need certain modules loaded into Powershell?
Nope – it is powershell independent. Did you find out the issue? If not, try creating and editing the shortcut in something like Visual Studio Code (it is free) or Notepad++.