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

When you connect to your SHS Server, and go to Start, Control Panel, Printers and Faxes, nothing shows up.

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 simple, you just 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, and 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 you can visit the following website:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q302361