JSI Tip 3796. How do enable location tracking for Windows 2000 printers?

Location tracking allows a user to browse for printers by location, without knowing their exact location or the location coding schema.

You can implement this functionality by enabling the Pre-populate printer search location text Group Policy and the Computer location Group Policy at Computer ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesPrinters.

Enabling the Pre-populate printer search location text Group Policy sets the PhysicalLocationSupport value name, a REG_DWORD data type, to 1, at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindows NTPrinters.

The Computer location Group Policy sets the PhysicalLocation string value at the same key. The location sting can be up to 259 characters and can contain wildcard characters.

If a user presses Start / Search / For Printers and then presses the Find Now button, all printers that match the PhysicalLocation string will be returned. The user can narrow the search by entering Name and Model parameters, or they can expand the search by clearing the Location field or by pressing Clear All.