Often home users connecting to a remote computer would like to print to their local printer. It is possible, at least sometimes, depending on the printer. The basic idea is that the host computer needs a driver for the guest computer's printer, then it needs to be able to map that driver to the printer when the terminal services session is established.

When the remote user's printer is an HP-Postscript enabled LaserJet HP2605dn, I have had some success installing the HP Universal Print Driver - Postscript and using the printer mapping described in MSKB 239088 and near the end of this article:  Windows Terminal Services Printing. And yes, this applies not only to servers running Terminal Services (aka Remote Desktop Services), but also to individual desktop computers that allow remote users to connect via Remote Desktop.

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Recently installed a new Dell Optiplex 960 running 32-bit Windows 7 Enterprise. The system board includes an Intel 82567LM-3 network adapter. With the latest Intel driver from Dell, version 11.5.4.0, the card would frequently lose connectivity for two seconds (e1kexpress events in System event log). When it reconnected, it would often be at 10Mbps instead of 1Gpbs. Also at startup, the card apparently did not connect fast enough, which led to various errors (DNS lookup 1014, NETLOGON 5719, Time-Service 131, group policy failures).

There is some confusion as to whether System Idle Power Saver (SIPS) causes this issue, and whether SIPS is available on the 82567LM-3. It is not exposed in the driver settings.

Upgrading to the latest driver from the Intel site, version 11.5.10.0, did not help.

Rolling back to the base Microsoft driver included with Windows 7, version 10.5.1.0, does help. No errors and consistent 1Gpbs speed in 39 hours since rolling back.

Intel threads discussing this issue:

http://communities.intel.com/thread/9913

http://communities.intel.com/thread/7057

The Remote Desktop experience in Window 7 computer has changed significantly since the Windows XP days. Here's a brief overview.

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The previous post described basic setup of the Dell PowerConnect 2824 switch. One of the reasons I bought this switch is its ability to "mirror" a port. This allows a properly-configured computer to sniff all the packets going through the mirrored port. If you mirror the port that goes to your external router, you should be able to monitor all the traffic between your router and all internal computers.

Setting up the switch and the free PRTG Network Monitor was pretty easy. Setting up the computer itself (an old Windows XP Home box) took some fiddling. Here in brief are the steps.

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