Reg Key {Client Side Rendering Print Provider} full of users SID's!

Question

Hi Everyone,

We got a little AVD pool where printers are mapped via GPP.

I noticed that the hive Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider is full of Users SIDs.

To note that we delete all profiles every night via a Powershell Script, this is working fine but I am not sure why these SID's remain.

Can these be deleted? We have to script it I guess.

Thanks, M

Answer 1

Hello,

Here is a Reddit post with a possible solution for this issue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/ujh5s1/check_your_20162019_rds_server_client_side/

There was a hotfix for Windows Server 2008 R2 for this issue, so what version are you running?

Darrell

Answer 2

Hi SenhorDolas,
Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform! Thank you for asking your question here
Based on your query,
I found one community similar type of questions could please refer below
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/194877/rds-w2019-default-printer-lost-on-session-disconne

And also found alternative scripts related to the registry Could you please refer this might get address your query please check it out all the link once
https://cloudinfra.net/how-to-delete-registry-key-and-values-using-powershell/

Anyone of the links might help you

Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

Answer 3

Hi @SenhorDolas

You will also find some server name under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider\Servers

The Print Spooler service will also never remove past print servers from this location.

The registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider is used to store connections to shared printers data. This is a per user setting which is why the user SIDs exist. This key is supposed to be removed when the RDS session is exited and the system calls remove printer connections.

If you are clear user profiles using PowerShell then remove printer connection is not getting called which would explain why the connections are not getting removed from the registry.

When the same user logs back in and a connection to a shared queue is added, the spooler should just place the new GUID printer under the key for the SID.

The new printer name is the same but the GUID will be different. If the user makes a connection to the same queue every time they connect, I suspect there a many GUID printers that actually point to the same shared queue.

If the users actually log out from RDS, I do expect the keys to be removed. If they just exit the session, the keys should still exist when they log on using the same session information.

If you are programmatically removing profiles, this will not touch the registry keys for connection to shared queues.

You can remove the connections to the shares by deleting the registry keys. The print spooler will not get rid of the data it reads from these keys until the Print Spooler service is restarted though.

Are you just attempting to get rid of registry bloat?

Take a look on any computer which has added a connection to a shared queue. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider

This is absolutely by design.

I have requested folks to delete these key on print servers where they have added connections to the same print server using GPP. I do not do RDS. I'm a print server type of person.

Thanks

Answer 4

Hi,

User SIDs under this key reference printer connections added by the users.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider

This is by design.

To properly remove them, the user would need to remove the connection in their RDS session.

Thanks

Thanks