Q: Why won't printers load into a Remote Desktop Session?

A:  When you connect to your SCS Server, and go to Start > Control Panel, > Printers and Faxes--and  nothing displays, this is a known Microsoft Windows XP issue and Microsoft has addressed it in a support article.

The reason for this behavior is that by default, Terminal Services only supports printer's that begin with COM, LPT, or USB.

The fix for this is fairly simple,  as you will need to follow the following 6 steps:

  1. Click Start > Click Run>  type "regedit" >  and then Click OK.
  2. Locate and then Click the following key in the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns\RDPDR
  3. On the Edit menu > point to New > then Click DWORD Value.
  4. Type "FilterQueueType", and then press ENTER.
  5. On the Edit menu, Click Modify.
  6. Type "FFFFFFFF", and then Click OK.

These steps allow all printer ports to be redirected inside Terminal Services/Remote Desktop.

To see the actual Microsoft Support document, Click here.

When you connect to your SCS Server, and go to Start > Control Panel, > Printers and Faxes--and  nothing displays, this is a known Microsoft Windows XP issue and Microsoft has addressed it in a support article.