How can I stop published printers being

A. If a computer which has published printers failed to respond by default its printers are removed from the Active Directory. This check happens every 8 hours and contact is tried twice. The next time the computer restarts the printers are republished again.

Its possible to stop printers being pruned in the case of temporary disconnection as follows:

1. Start the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in (Start - Programs - Administrative Tools - Active Directory Users and Computers)
2. Right click on the domain and select Properties
3. Select the Group Policy tab
4. Select the 'Default Domain Policy' object and click Edit
5. Expand Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Printers
6. Double click 'Prune printers that are not automatically republished'
7. Select Disable and click Apply then OK
8. Close the Group Policy and the MMC snap-in

Other options are to change the length between checks and the number of retries:

• Directory pruning interval - Change from 8 hours from Immediately up to Never
• Directory pruning retry - Change from the default of 2 from None to Six
• Directory pruning priority - Change from normal priority for the thread running the check

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