"List in the Directory" Printer Property Is Not Automatically Checked on New Printers

If a large number of printers is already installed on a Windows 2000 print server (for example, more than 400), if you remotely create and configure more printers, the List in the directory printer property is no longer checked for all the newly created printers. This problem occurs even if you do not change the default setting to publish new printers or if you explicitly configure a separate Group Policy object (GPO) that automatically publishes new printers in Active Directory.

This problem only occurs if you remotely create and configure these printers by using a script, for example, if you use the Prncfg.vbs script from the Windows 2000 Resource Kit.

If you remotely create a printer, Windows does not check the default setting or the GPO to publish new printers in Active Directory.

To resolve this issue, use the Prncfg.vbs script from the Windows 2000 Resource Kit, and then set the "List in the directory" flag for remote creation, for example: You can set the publish flag in conjunction with other parameters or you can set the publish flag after you experience the problem that is described in the "Symptoms" section of this article.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

If this problem occurs, the List in the directory printer property is still checked automatically in the following scenarios:

• You use the graphical user interface (GUI).
• You run the same script locally on the print server.

After the List in the directory printer property is set during remote creation, the following event ID message is logged in the system event log of the print server. If the List in the directory printer property is not published in Active Directory, the following event ID message is logged: