Using Your Local Printers While Using A Remote Desktop Connection

These are the steps to take to show local printers when connected via Remote Desktop:

1. Click on your Remote Desktop icon on your desktop or in your Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Communications menu.

2. The following screen should appear:



3. Click on Options and the following screen should appear:



4. Select the Local Resources tab as shown below and check the Printers option.



5. Click on the General tab and the following screen should appear and you will type in your password and click Connect.



6. After connecting you should be able to go to Printers and Faxes under Control Panel and see your printers as shown below:

This should be all there is to it!

If you are still having problems I would install the printer driver for the printer on your client computer on the remote computer and change the port to something that you really don't have on the remote computer for example: LPT2, LPT3 so that the printer never gets called but the driver is available for your remote connection. This should work or you can do the manual printer redirection as in the help article below from Windows help for Remote Desktop Connection.

• Redirected printers are available for use with applications running on the server. Redirected printers appear in the Printers and Faxes folder in Control Panel and are named in this format: Client Printer Name/Client Computer Name/Session Number.
• When you disconnect or log off from a session, the printer queue is deleted and incomplete or pending print jobs are lost.

►Reprint Rights◄

Comments on this article:

» left by bob (3 years 233 days ago.)

helpful- I was stuck before. very clear
Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by Anonymous from Harlingen, TX (2 years 228 days ago.)

Yes, it is very helpful, the first article I have come across to fully explain the issue.
Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by Vikas Soni from India (2 years 183 days ago.)

It is really good.
Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by jr from Silicon Valley, Ca (2 years 55 days ago.)

excellent explanation just what I was looking for
Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by Sharan from India (1 year 253 days ago.)

I did all mentioned above, but was not successful.
Please advice what could be the possible issue?

Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Mark this comment as not needing a response, Remove this comment.

» left by Thomas Swaney ^(2,901) (1 year 221 days ago.)
I would need more details to help you with this problem.
Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by Carl from London (1 year 239 days ago.)

Sharan can you provide even less information maybe? :)
Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by Anonymous (1 year 213 days ago.)

Very Informative and helpful
Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by shiddu from Pat (1 year 86 days ago.)

Thanks Thomas Swaney Very Veery Helpful..

Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by ahmad from Dubai (362 days 13 hours ago.)

explained a lot to me, but what about network printers? I am using two printers connected directly to the network through TCP/IP ports, and still can't get them to appear in remote desktop sessions.

Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Mark this comment as not needing a response, Remove this comment.

» left by Thomas Swaney ^(2,901) (361 days 16 hours ago.)

Make sure to install the printer on your local computer for these network printers and they should show up on your local computer when you connect.

Since you are the author of this article, you may Remove this comment.

» left by JT (344 days 16 hours ago.)

Yup, very useful. Thanks.

Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Mark this comment as not needing a response, Remove this comment.

» left by Cody Ng from Singapore (266 days 19 hours ago.)

I am currently facing a problem with printing to local printer while connected to Terminal Server using Remote Desktop.

 

Sometimes the printout does not come out to the local printer, and the worst of all is that the print job goes out to another printer located in another location.

 

Can anyone please help me on this issue?

 

Thanks

Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Mark this comment as not needing a response, Remove this comment.

» left by Umit Yaz from Antalya, Turkiye (247 days 14 hours ago.)

Hi, I have a local printer having Generic-Generic Text Only Driver on my local pc. When I start a Remote Desktop Session, my printer is shown in the printer list of the server. So far, so good.

 

But there is a problem: my font setting -> Code Page is MS-DOS Turkish (857) on the local printer, but US(ANSI) (1252) on the server. How can I make RDP to set my local printer on the server exactly same as it is on my local pc?

Respond to this comment

Since you are the author of this article, you may Mark this comment as not needing a response, Remove this comment.