Version History in ImageRight 4.0

When our company started out with ImageRight 3.5, adding annotations to documents was one of the big features that made the system easy to adopt. However, much like writing on a document with a pen, annotations couldn’t be undone individually. One had to be very sure they were putting the proper annotation in the right place, because once it was committed to the page there was no turning back.

One of the improved features that came with ImageRight 4.0 is the addition of version history with documents. This feature allows people with the appropriate permissions to view the history of changes made to a page. While regular users can see the history of individual annotations by view the properties of each, the version history allows the quick review of each set of changes and a previous versions can be promoted to be the current version in the case of errors. This has allowed me to help some users “roll back” changes, which has saved them time and made people a little more comfortable with experimenting with different uses of annotations.

For .TIF images it shows the annotation history and for non-image files (like Word docs or spreadsheets) complete copies of the changed files are stored. This is an improvement over the 3.5 version where annotation history was maintained for the sake of being able to review who added what marks, but didn’t allow for any type of administrative “undo” of annotation that were made in error.

When it comes to .TIF documents, it is possible to create a “new” version of a document without making a visible change. It’s important to have an idea of the scenarios where these extra versions can be created in case you are tasked with doing some type of detective work regarding the history of a document.

Here are several examples of when a new version can be created without any visible annotations.

Adding an annotation and then deleting the annotation prior to saving or moving off a page

Clicking on a sticky note, without moving or modifying the content

Deleting a sticky note

Add a text box with no text and deleting it prior to saving or moving off a page

As people get more comfortable moving within ImageRight and using annotations, these actions will happen less and the true history of each document will remain pretty clean. The addition of this feature provides valuable details that are worth the hit in disk space taken to maintain the versions.

Even More Windows Events!

It must be conference season again, because I keep running across a variety of technical events that look valuable. Here are a couple more:

Windows Summit 2010 runs May 25-27 at the Microsoft Conference Center on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, WA and is designed for people who engineer and test Windows 7 PCs, devices, and software. Three technical tracks (System, Device and Software) will to help you create the best systems, devices, and software using Windows 7 and Internet Explorer. For more information visit the website, registration is $399.

Also, the Launch 2010: Technical Readiness Series kicks off in late April. The event in San Francisco is on May 20th at the Embarcadero Hyatt, but check out the full city listings for other locations. The event will cover Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 and other products including Exchange 2010 and SQL Server. There are both IT Professional and Developer tracks available and this event is free, so register soon – these types of events fill up fast.

Finally, don’t forget the Pacific IT Pros regular monthly meeting tomorrow and the special TechDays Forensics session next week.

When Easy Print Doesn’t Print

Terminal Services 2008 introduced Easy Print, a feature that doesn’t require print drivers for local printers to be installed on the remote terminal server. Instead Server 2008 redirects the default printer from the local machine and utilizes the locally installed driver.

While this works well for a lot of printers, printers that need legacy or specialty drivers (like those handy multi-function printers), may result in print jobs are garbled or use incorrect fonts.

The first troubleshooting step should be to update the the print drivers on the client computer, but if this isn’t possible, the default behavior of Easy Print can be overridden with some registry keys and some GPO settings. Also, in some cases, the correct print driver still produces bad print results so you’ll need to use a different driver.

The following steps will override Easy Print, utilizing a driver installed on the server instead AND force a substitution with a different driver.

First, you’ll want to create a special INF file that lists the printers your want to specify alternate drivers for. You’ll reference this INF file in some new registry entries on the server. Follow the format used in the following example:

;NTPRINTSUBS.INF

;Printer mapping file for client-side to server-side drivers

[Printers]

"OEM Printer Driver Name" = "Windows Server 2008 Driver Name"

For example:

"HP DeskJet 720C Series v10.3" = "HP DeskJet 722C"

The left side of the equation is the exact name of the printer driver associated with the client printer that is being redirected to the server. The right side of the equation is the exact name of the server-side driver that is installed on the terminal server. You’ll have to check your printer driver properties to make sure you have the names right.

Next, you’ll need to add a few registry values to your terminal server.

Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd registry subkey.
Add the following values:
Name: PrinterMappingINFName
Type: String (REG_SZ)
Value data: Name of the .inf file to which you want to redirect lookups. (Example – c:\windows\inf\ntprintsubs.inf)

Name: PrinterMappingINFSection
Type: String (REG_SZ)
Value data: Name of the section in the .inf file to which you want to redirect lookups. (Example – Printers)

You must restart the Print Spooler service on the terminal server for the changes to take effect. If you need more details about this process, check out Event 1111 – Terminal Services Printer Redirection on TechNet.

Finally, you’ll need to adjust or create a group policy that will alter the behavior of Easy Print for all of your TS users. There are several additional policies that can be enabled to tweak how client machines handle Easy Print. The one you want to adjust “Use Terminal Services Easy Print Print Driver First” and you’ll want to disable it. This will force clients to look for appropriate drivers on the server first and only use Easy Print if no suitable driver is found. It doesn’t disable Easy Print entirely, just makes it the second choice.

Depending on which OS you are using as your GPO management workstation, you’ll have to look in for the policy in one of two places. The discrepancy is related to the renaming of “Terminal Services” to “Remote Desktop Services” with Windows 2008 R2. The registry settings that the policy adjusts are the same.

For Vista or Server 2008, go to Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components –> Terminal Services –> Terminal Server –> Printer Redirection.
On Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2, go to Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Administrative Templates –> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> Remote Desktop Session Host ->Printer Redirection.

In our case, we were unable to find the setting at all using Windows Vista and we don’t have a Windows 2008 server running GPMC to compare it too. However, we simply made the adjustment using a Windows 7 workstation instead. For other troubleshooting tips with Easy Print, check out the RDS Team Blog.

On the Tech Radar: Upcoming Events

Looking for some technology events for your calendar in the upcoming months? Here are a few that you might want to check out.

Start out April with the regular Pacific IT Professionals meeting on April 6th. Hear from Neustar about their Webmetrics and UltraDNS solutions. Also, PacITPros will also be having a special TechDays event on Computer Forensics on April 12th. Sign up soon to secure your spot!

A one day Windows Intelligence event is being held in Burlingame on April 26th, hosted by QuickStart Intelligence and Microsoft. Technical tracks include Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 and Virtualization, Exchange and Office.

On June 10th, the Microsoft and Citrix will team up and come to San Francisco to talk about desktop virtualization. Other cities and dates are on the schedule from now through June as part of the 2010 Virtualization Summit.

Finally, don’t forget some of the multi-day events, which are always a lot of fun – the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas (April 19-23) and TechEd in New Orleans in June.