Issue: How to run PPPClient.exe with a group policy or logon script
1. Open Group Policy Management
2. Right-click the Group Policy object that applies to the users in question and click Edit
3. Under User Configuration, expand System and then Logon
4. Double-click Run these programs at logon
5. Select Enabled
6. Click Show
7. Click Add and enter the UNC path to PPPClient.exe, along with any command line parameters
Example: \\myserver\myshare\pppclient.exe nowatcher workingdirectory="C:\Temp"
8. Click OK and close the GPO
Or just add the following to the logon script:
start \\server\share\ppp\pppclient.exe
Issue: How to run PPPClient.exe with elevated privileges.
Here are the examples of using the p= and u= switch to run pppclient.exe
with elevated rights:
\\server\share\ppp\pppclient.exe u=example.domain.com\username
p=password
J:\ppp\pppclient.exe u=example.domain.com\username p=password
* Note: PPPClient.exe is still ran in the users space but when attempting operations that require elevated privileges it runs those procedures with the user specified with the u= switch.
Description: All command line parameters for PPPClient are preceded by a single space on the command line, and do not use a "/" or other
delimiter. If a parameter value includes spaces, the entire value should be enclosed in double
quotes. Unless specified, multiple parameters can be used simultaneously, separated by a single
space. An example that meets all these requirements is
Use the u= and p= to specify the domain user that you want PPPClient.exe to use
when Elevated privileges are required. You may use a login account local
to the end-user's machine, but this account would need to be present on every
machine the client is running on.
Workoffline
This option gives the client the ability to continue functioning without interruption when the remote location the client is
installed on is no longer available. It does this by caching all data files as they are accessed from the remote location to a local temp directory. A client can only access files offline, that it has previously accessed while the remote location was available.
Install
This option is used when running the client from a network drive or other remote location. It causes essential client files to be installed locally on end-user's machines and sets up registry keys to run the local copy of the client automatically whenever a user log in. The client will still run as if its directly from the remote location (including any changes to application versions, datafiles, etc). It will continue to function if the remote
location is unavailable at any point in time, and will resume network operation as soon as its online again. You can continue to run the client from the network location with the install option without any negative side effects. (this allows you to keep it in a login script so that new computers will get the client installed automatically).
If administrative rights are not available when the command is executed, it
will only be installed for the current user.
Uninstall
This uninstalls any registry entries made by the Install option, and then immediately terminates.
Autoclose=x
This specifies how long (in minutes) the client should run for, before automatically closing itself.
Delay=x
This option instructs the client to sit idle for the specified number of seconds when starting up before attempting to process anything. This is generally unneeded, but can sometimes be required if another application interferes during login and causes conflicts, or
if the computer has a particularily slow start up.
HideOnInvalidPath
Causes the PPPClient.exe to remain hidden even if it is unable to connect to the configuration file to receive instruction to run open or hidden. The downside to using this option is you don't know the
PPPClient.exe is not able to find the config file in the <ppp_install_dir>/mem folder. The good side of it is users will never see the
PPPClient log window. Usually this parameter is used with the WorkingDirectory parameter so that if the server is down that is holding the
PPP configuration database the PPPClient.exe will remain running silent (although doing no work) until the next time the user logs in and the server is back up.
LogAsAdmin
This instructs the advanced logging options to be performed
as the user specified on the command line, as opposed to the user running PPP
Client. (Advanced logging can be enabled on the [Global] tab of the
"Client Settings" found in any of the administrator applications). This
is useful if you wish to limit write access to the network folder these logs
are in to administrative accounts.
MinimizeClientWindow
This option allows you to override the "Show Client Window" option on the [Global] tab of the "Client Settings" in any of the administrator applications. This will always hide
the PPP Client on startup.
NoMenu
This will allow you to run a specific PPP Administrative module without the module loading the main menu first.
NoWatcher
This tells the client to close immediately after completing initial configuration.
This is used when you don't want PPPClient to continue running on the client machine, watching for printer installs.
ProfilerHelper
This tells the client to use an alternate method for
detecting changes to user printer connections. This is mostly provided for
backwards compatibility, but can also be useful on some machines where the
operating system is not correctly signaling change events.
Regedit
This allows you to specify an alternate path to the windows application "Regedit". This application is used in some situations on a 64 bit platform,
and is used extensively for PPP Profiler when configuring printers. You would normally receive an error if the client can not find Regedit.
Showclientwindow
or
NoMinimize
This option allows you to override the "Show
Client Window" option on the [Global] tab of the "Client Settings" in any of
the administrator applications. This will always show the client window of PPP
Client on startup and is most useful for troubleshooting.
UpdateInterval=
Allows you to override the value specified on the [Global] tab of the
"Client Settings" in any of the administrator applications. This will control how many
minutes the clients wait before checking in for changes to settings, datafiles,
or other configurations.
Wait=
This option allows you to override the number of seconds to wait after a printer change is detected before running configurations. This is usually used for specific instances where a different value is useful. Otherwise the option found on the [Global] tab of the "Client Settings" in any of the administrator applications should be used.
WorkingDirectory=
Allows you to specify an alternate path where data-files can be found, apart from the executables. This is often used to allow a locally installed Client to run with data-files from a network drive. This option is left mostly for backward compatibility. If you wish clients to be installed locally on computers, the "Install" option is recommended.
Gatherer Client Parameters These options are only used if the client has been configured to gather printer settings and drivers from all the end user machines.
ForceDrivers
Gather the drivers for all local printers, even if its been done preivously and doesn't appear to need updating.
ExcludeDrivers
Do not gather drivers for local printers, even if they have never been gathered in the past. This is usually used when you want the client to gather information about the printers on the network, so all the objects can be defined for you, but you wish to specify new drivers for everything yourself.
Issue: PPPClient stalls the login script or batch file
Description: Starting with version 6, PPPClient has a feature named Printer Watcher.After configuring all installed printers, PPPClient slips into the background and waits for more printers to be installed in order to configure them.Because of this, PPPClient doesn't exit until the user logs out or shuts down.
Solution:
1. MICROSOFT: If starting PPPClient from a batch file (.com or .bat), simply putting in the path and filename to PPPClient will make the batch file to wait for the program to finish.Use the Start command, and the batch file will continue without waiting for the program to finish.
Example: start y:\pppclient.exe.
2. NOVELL: If starting PPPClient from a login script, use the @ symbol instead of the # symbol.@ will allow the script to continue, while # will wait for PPPClient to exit, which won't happen.See Novell TID 2905212 for more information. Back to Top
Issue: Distribute PPPro Client Package fails to copy PPPClient.exe
Description: This tool performs a basic file copy to the remote location.As such, if the pppclient.exe file is in use, or running on client computers from that location, the file may not be overwritten.Unless you are upgrading your PPPClient.exe file, this is not a problem, since the PPPClient.exe file is not altered when making changes to printer configurations.If you are upgrading or updating your software, PPPClient.exe will need to be overwritten.
Solution:
1. Peform the distribution after hours when no end-users are logged in or using the PPPClient.exe file. Back to Top
Issue: How to migrate / move printers to a Microsoft cluster
Description: When migrating printers from a server to a Microsoft Cluster there doesn't seem to be a server object in Active Directory for the "virtual server" that I want as the target server.
Solution: First we need to make the cluster servers (virtual server objects) show up in Active Directory so we can select them in the Printer Migrator application as a target server.
* On the Windows server open "Cluster Administrator" (start - Administrative Tools - Cluster Administrator)
* Select the Cluster that you are wanting to migrate printers to
* Select the "Resources" folder and select the appropriate "group" folder containing the virtual server you want to see in Active Directory.
* In the right pane right click on "Network Name" and select properties
* Select the "Parameters" tab
* Check the "Enable Kerberos Authentication" option (resource must be offline to enable). This option may not be available when running "Cluster Administrator" from a Windows 2000 desktop. Try remoting into the cluster name and accessing the "Cluster Administrator" from the cluster server.
Now your virtual server object will show up in Active Directory (by default it will populate into the "Computers" container). Open Printer Migrator and simply select any printer from eDirectory and the target virtual server (cluster server) and the printers will be copied to the virtual server. By migrating the printers to the virtual server object the printers will failover with the cluster resources because the printers have been installed to the virtual server and not the actual physical server.
NOTE: The migrated printers will still be viewed in Active Directory under the current server node that is hosting the resource (this is standard Windows behavior).
