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Endpoint Printer Session Settings

Endpoint Printer Session Settings control how ScrewDrivers Endpoint printers behave during remote sessions—which printers get built, how they're named, what rendering options apply, and how users interact with print functions. You'll configure these settings in ScrewDrivers Administration and assign them to owners, where they'll affect all endpoint printers for those users. This reference details the complete set of session settings, from basic printer creation policies through advanced rendering and export controls.

Overview​

Tricerat supplies a default set of session settings called "Default ScrewDrivers Settings" that you can use as-is, modify to suit your needs, or use as a template for creating custom configurations. When you assign session settings to an owner, those settings apply to all of the owner's ScrewDrivers Endpoint printers—you can't configure settings on a per-printer basis.

Session settings organize into seven functional areas: printer creation and default handling (General tab), printer naming schemes (Printer Naming tab), spooling and Windows printing features (Advanced tab), user interface controls (Printer UI tab), print job rendering optimizations (Extended Options), and printer denial rules (Denial tab). Each area gives you granular control over different aspects of the printing experience.

Creating and Assigning Session Settings​

You have three options when working with session settings: assign the existing default settings to owners, modify those defaults before assigning them, or create entirely new settings objects with custom configurations.

Assigning Existing Settings​

To assign session settings that are already configured:

  1. Click the Session Printer Settings icon on the Icon Bar to switch the Objects pane to session settings view
  2. Select the settings object you want to assign
  3. Drag it to the target owner in the Assignments pane

The settings save automatically when you complete the assignment—no manual save action is required.

Creating New Session Settings​

When you need custom settings for specific use cases:

  1. Right-click "ScrewDrivers Session Settings" in the Objects pane
  2. Enter a descriptive name for the new settings object
  3. Click Add

The new settings object appears in the console with all values set to defaults. Select it to view the configuration form in the Information pane, where you'll see tabs for General, Printer Naming, Advanced, Printer UI, Extended Options, Denial, plus the standard Assignments and Audit tabs.

Modifying Existing Settings​

To edit settings before assigning them:

  1. Select the settings object in the Objects pane
  2. The Information pane displays the configuration form with current values
  3. Make your changes across any of the tabs
  4. Click Save to persist your modifications
  5. Drag the modified settings to appropriate owners

General Tab Settings​

The General tab controls fundamental printer creation behavior and extended features that affect default printer handling and printer monitoring during sessions.

Printer Creation Options​

You must select exactly one printer creation policy—these options are mutually exclusive and determine which of the user's client printers get built on the Session Agent after login:

Do not add any client printers: Prevents the Session Agent from building any client printers. You'll typically enable this only when Tricerat support directs you to do so, usually for troubleshooting scenarios or environments where client printing should be completely disabled.

Add all client printers: The default setting. All printers available on the client get built in the session, giving users access to their complete printer set regardless of how many devices they have configured.

Add only the client's default printer: Builds only the single printer marked as default on the client. This reduces printer creation overhead in environments where users primarily print to one device and rarely need access to alternate printers.

Add clients first N printers: Builds a limited number of printers based on the priority order displayed in the ScrewDrivers Endpoint Client. Change the default value of 2 as needed for your environment. When you enable this option, "Always add client's default" turns on automatically, ensuring the default printer gets built even if it falls outside the specified count.

Extended Settings​

Extended settings provide additional printing features that enhance the user experience in specific scenarios:

Allow default printer spoofing: Turned on by default. When enabled, users can designate a printer that isn't defined as the client's default printer to serve as the default during their remote session. This proves useful when users need different default printers for local work versus remote sessions—for example, printing to a network device during remote sessions while using a local printer for desktop work.

Recapture the default printer after N seconds: Turned on by default with a 30-second interval. The Session Agent resets the default printer to match the client's setting after the specified time period, preventing traditional "server printers" from becoming the user's default during the session. You can adjust the timer as needed for your environment—shorter intervals provide faster correction but generate more overhead.

Monitor client for changes to the default printer, and reflect in session: When enabled, changes to the default printer on the client immediately propagate to the active session. Users can switch their default printer on the endpoint and see that change reflected instantly in their remote session without reconnecting.

Monitor client for new printers, and add in session: Detects when users add printers to their endpoint during an active session and automatically builds those printers in the remote session. This handles scenarios where users connect new devices or install printer drivers while logged in remotely.

Monitor client for removed printers, and remove from session: Triggers automatic removal of printers from the session when they're removed from the client endpoint. This keeps the session printer list synchronized with the client's current configuration.

Delete printers on session disconnect, and add on reconnect: Turned on by default. Removes all client printers when the session disconnects, then rebuilds them when the user reconnects. This ensures clean printer states across disconnect/reconnect cycles and prevents stale printer objects from accumulating.

Printer Naming Tab​

Printer naming schemes control how printers appear to users in their sessions. The naming convention helps users identify which physical device they're printing to, especially in environments with multiple printers or shared workstations.

Default Naming Schemes​

Four predefined schemes provide common naming patterns:

  • Printer Name (MACHINE:SESSION): The default scheme. Shows the printer's name followed by the machine name and session ID in parentheses
  • MACHINE:SESSION (Printer Name): Reverses the order, leading with machine and session information
  • Printer Name (USER:SESSION): Shows the printer name followed by username and session ID
  • USER:SESSION (Printer Name): Leads with username and session ID

Customizing Naming Schemes​

Whether you're editing a default scheme or creating a custom one, you can apply several transformations:

Limit name component lengths: Restrict the maximum character count for Printer, Machine, and User components. The default limit is ten characters, but you can adjust this to fit your naming conventions or prevent extremely long printer names from cluttering print dialogs.

Replace special characters: Configure replacement rules for characters that might cause issues or violate naming standards. For example, you can replace backslashes with underscores, colons with dashes, or any other character transformation needed for your environment.

Custom Naming Schemes​

For complete control over printer naming:

  1. Select "Custom" as your naming scheme
  2. Define the format using Session ID plus one or more components: Printer, Machine Name, and User
  3. Arrange components in any order—you can use a single component, two components, or all three

The Session ID component is mandatory. Tricerat doesn't support formats without Session ID because users might log into multiple sessions, creating naming conflicts without the unique session identifier.

Note: Special characters other than exclamation points, backslashes, and periods are allowed in free text fields when building custom schemes.

Advanced Tab Settings​

Advanced settings control print spooling behavior and Windows Advanced Printing Features. These low-level options affect performance, application return time, and how print jobs move through the spooling pipeline.

Spool Options​

You must select exactly one spool option—these settings are mutually exclusive:

Start printing immediately with spooling: Selected by default. The printer begins outputting pages before the entire job is spooled on the client, which means jobs print faster and applications return control to users sooner. This works well for most scenarios and provides the best balance of performance and reliability.

Start printer after last page is spooled: Delays printing until the complete job is spooled on the client. Use this when you need to ensure the entire document is captured before output begins, which can help with troubleshooting or situations where partial jobs cause problems.

Print directly to the printer without spooling: Windows sends documents straight to the printer, bypassing the spool directory entirely. This option helps when the spooling computer is low on disk space or when you have extremely large print jobs that would overwhelm the spool. However, it removes the benefits of spooling, including better application performance and the ability to manage queued jobs.

For the first two options (those that use spooling), Windows spools printed documents to a designated directory on the print server, then despools them to the printer according to the selected timing.

Printing Options​

Print spooled documents first: When enabled (the default), the Windows print spooler prioritizes documents that have completed spooling over those still in the process. Among fully spooled documents, printing proceeds in order of decreasing file size. This provides the best overall printer efficiency.

When disabled, the print spooler prints documents based on the priority assigned to each printer. Users set printer priority on the Printers tab in the ScrewDrivers Endpoint Client control panel.

Windows Advanced Printing Features​

These three options control EMF (Enhanced Metafile) spooling behavior. You must select exactly one:

Use client printer setting: Selected by default. References the client's "Enable Advanced Printing" setting for the ScrewDrivers Endpoint driver on the Session Agent machine, allowing per-client control.

Force advanced printer features to be enabled for all printers: Overrides client settings and turns on Advanced Printing for all printers using the ScrewDrivers Endpoint driver on the Session Agent.

Force advanced printer features to be disabled for all printers: Overrides client settings and turns off Advanced Printing for all printers using the ScrewDrivers Endpoint driver on the Session Agent.

For most print drivers, you should leave advanced printing enabled to allow faster application return time. However, because ScrewDrivers Endpoint uses RAW data and converts it to triMetaFile (TMF) format, this setting has minimal influence over application return time. In certain scenarios, EMF-to-TMF conversion might slow printing or create large spool files—disabling Advanced Printing Features can resolve these spooling issues when they occur.

Printer UI Tab​

The Printer UI tab controls which features appear to users on the ScrewDrivers Endpoint Printing Preferences dialog box. For each feature you enable, you must specify the client availability: Deny, Force, or Suggest.

Action Settings​

Action settings tie executable files to print functions, allowing you to trigger applications or scripts before or after printing. While not commonly used, actions benefit environments where users perform repetitious tasks related to printing.

Enable action settings: Turns on the Action tab in the user's Printing Preferences dialog. Once enabled, configure these options:

Launch Session Process: Determines whether the Session Agent should Deny, Force, or Suggest this action. When enabled, specify the full directory path to the application and any arguments or switches to send to the application.

Open Session Export: When turned on, PDF or BMP files that the Session Agent saves through the Export function automatically open.

Launch Client Process: Controls whether the ScrewDrivers Endpoint client should Deny, Force, or Suggest this action. Like session processes, you must specify the full path and any required arguments.

Open Client Export: When enabled, PDF or BMP files that the client saves through the Export function automatically open.

Export Settings​

Export settings let users save print jobs as PDF or BMP files instead of sending them to physical printers. This provides document archiving, print-to-file functionality, and alternative output options.

Enable export settings: Turns on the Export tab in the user's Printing Preferences dialog. Once enabled, configure these options:

Print Method: Determines whether files are printed normally or exported (saved) to a selected format. Users can choose between printing physically or exporting to PDF or BMP format.

Save as type: Specifies which file formats users can select: PDF, BMP, or both.

Deny export of file to session: When turned on, prevents users from saving files on the Session Agent machine.

Session Save Mode: Controls how files are saved on the Session Agent:

  • Do not Save: Blocks all saving to the Session Agent
  • Display Save Dialog: Shows a standard save dialog when users export
  • Use Input Pathname: Requires you to specify a destination directory where users can save files. You must enter either a full directory path or a complete filename (filename.pdf or filename.bmp)

If File Exists (for Session Agent saves): Determines behavior when the target file already exists:

  • Overwrite: Automatically replace the existing file
  • Prompt: Ask the user how to proceed
  • Cancel: Abort the save operation, leaving the existing file unchanged
  • Append: Add the new content to the end of the existing file

Deny export of file to client: When turned on, prevents users from saving files on their endpoint.

Client Save Mode: Controls how files are saved on the client (same options as Session Save Mode).

Dest. Option: When set to Force or Suggest and "Autogenerate Filename" is enabled, the system generates the filename automatically without user input.

If File Exists (for client saves): Same options as session saves (Overwrite, Prompt, Cancel, Append).

Extended Options Settings​

Extended Options control advanced print job features and rendering optimizations.

Enable extended options settings: Turns on the Extended Options tab in the user's Printing Preferences dialog. Once enabled, configure these options:

Second Print Dialog: The second print dialog box is the Client Print Spooler dialog. By default, this doesn't display. When enabled and set to Force or Suggest, the dialog appears when jobs begin spooling, giving users access to advanced functions like stapling, booklet printing, and hole punching.

Separator Page: When enabled, prints an additional banner page containing job information (user name, document name, etc.). This helps identify print jobs in shared printer environments.

These options provide workarounds for printing issues related to fonts, scaling, and graphics. Use them when standard printing produces incorrect output:

Print-As-Image: Converts each page of the print job to BMP format. While this resolves many output issues (especially font problems), uncompressed printing uses significant bandwidth. When you enable this option, don't automatically choose the default DPI—each doubling of DPI quadruples the data size. Select the lowest acceptable DPI, typically 300 DPI for most documents.

Font Embedding: Controls how fonts are handled when they're not available on the client. Three modes are available:

  • Embed All Fonts (default): Sends temporary font files to the client with the print job, then removes them after printing completes
  • Pre-Render Embedded: Sends unavailable fonts as images and integrates the text back into the job file
  • Pre-Render All: Sends all fonts as images regardless of client availability, then integrates text back into the job file

You'll typically select Pre-Render All only when Tricerat support directs you to, usually for situations involving unreliable client fonts, incomplete font sets, or font mismatches between session host and client.

Color Quality: Controls image rendering bit depth. Defaults to High (TrueColor, 24-bit) but can be reduced to conserve bandwidth:

  • Medium (HighColor): 16-bit color
  • Low: 8-bit color
  • Monochrome: 1-bit (true black and white)

Lowering color quality reduces spool size but degrades output. The difference between 24-bit and 16-bit is negligible, but quality degradation becomes pronounced as you move to lower bit depths.

Compression: Applies lossy compression to images for additional spool size reduction. Output quality suffers somewhat, so test before deploying widely.

Minimize spool: Breaks large images into multiple smaller chunks, allowing faster data streaming to the printer and reduced peak memory usage. The printer can discard each chunk as it's rendered rather than holding the entire image in memory.

Force grayscale: Converts all document images to 8-bit grayscale, reducing file size. Use when color isn't needed or when printing to monochrome devices.

Denial Tab​

The Denial tab lets you prevent the Session Agent from automatically building specific categories of printers or printers that use specific drivers.

General Settings​

Deny creation of the client's local printers: Prevents the Session Agent from building locally attached printers when users log in. Use this when you want users to access only network or server-based printers during their sessions.

Deny creation of the client's network printers: Prevents the Session Agent from building network printers when users log in. This restricts users to locally attached devices or server-based printers.

Driver Settings​

To prevent the Session Agent from building printers based on their driver:

  1. Click Add in the Driver Settings section
  2. A placeholder entry labeled "Denied Driver" appears
  3. Double-click the placeholder to enter editing mode
  4. Enter the exact driver name for the client printer (e.g., "Microsoft XPS Document Writer")
  5. The denied driver appears in the list below the field

Any printer using a denied driver won't be built during user login, regardless of other printer creation settings. This provides surgical control over which printers get created based on driver characteristics rather than broad categories like "local" or "network."

To remove a driver from the Denied list, select it and click Remove.

Saving and Assigning Settings​

After configuring all the settings across the various tabs:

  1. Click Save to persist your changes
  2. In the Objects pane, select the configured session settings
  3. Drag them to the appropriate owner in the Assignments pane

If the required owner doesn't exist in your Active Directory, you can create a custom Network owner as described in the Managing Owners reference.