I have a RemoteApp running on a Windows 2012 R2 RDS server. Originally, we were using redirected printing so that the user's locally accessible printers already configured on their computers were being used when printing from within the app. This works, but it takes a dreadfully long from the time the user clicks "print" until the printer starts up (the printer is not busy or sleeping). We have had instantaneous printing with a similar setup in the past, but can't figure out why printing is so slow in this environment. I have already worked with Microsoft Support for weeks and we ruled out any kind of network performance issue as the cause, so it must be a difference in how this new environment is setup.
As an experiment, we disabled redirected printing and installed the same printer drivers from the end-user computers on the RDS server itself. This means that when users print within our app, they are using a printer from the server's perspective (not their local computer). Printing is instantaneous.
Here's the problem. The end-users are spread out across multiple physical locations and there are multiple printers by department in each location. Each end-user needs to use their own local default printer. All of the available printers are listed by the RDS server, but this requires the end-user to always choose the correct printer when printing every time, which was deemed an unacceptable practice. How can I determine each user's default printer (that is currently set on their local machine) so that I can assign it as the default printer with their user profile on the RDS server? User accounts/profiles that are setup on the RDS server for each person are not affiliated with their user accounts/profiles on their local computers (different domains, trusts are not allowed between them).