Yesterday the session printed to your desk printer by itself. Today the same session defaults to a PDF printer or the office machine down the hall. Nothing is haunted - the session default is recalculated at every login from rules most people have never seen. Here they are.
A redirected session does not have one fixed default printer. By default, at login the session looks at your client PC's default printer and makes its redirected copy the session default. Change anything on the client - print once to another printer at home, dock the laptop at a different desk - and tomorrow's session default changes with it. Once you see that mechanism, every fix below is obvious.
Windows 10 and 11 can manage your default printer for you, switching it to whichever printer you used last. Inside RDP that helpfulness becomes chaos, because the session inherits the client's default at every logon.
Inside the session, open Devices and Printers, right-click the redirected printer you want and choose Set as default printer. Understand what you just did, though: this holds while the printer arrangement stays the same. Because the redirected name carries your session number, the durable anchor is really the client default from the previous step - fix it there and the session follows. Applications add one more layer: many programs remember the last printer they used inside the app, separately from the Windows default, so check the app's own print dialog before blaming the session.
Sometimes the office design is the opposite: the server has a central printer and it should remain everyone's default, with redirected printers available but never promoted. The policy for that is Do not set default client printer to be default printer in a session, in the Printer Redirection policy node covered by the Group Policy guide in this series. Enable it, and sessions stop inheriting client defaults - users pick the redirected printer manually when they need it. This is the right setting for shared-workstation and kiosk-style servers, and the wrong one for people working from home all day, whose desk printer is precisely what they want as default.
If you log in from the office PC on weekdays and a home laptop on weekends, expect different session defaults: each client brings its own default with it. That is the design working, not failing. The practical habits that keep it sane: one obvious default per client machine, Windows-managed default switched off on both, and - for applications like Tally that users print from all day - selecting the printer consciously at print time instead of trusting any default. Tools with a fixed printer name, such as the TSPrint Default printer from the video, exist partly to end this daily roulette: the name is the same in every session, from every client.
Watch the video to see how TSPrint gives the session a printer name that stays identical every single login.
▶️ Watch Full VideoBecause at each fresh logon the session re-derives its default from your client PC's default printer. Set the default on the client (with Windows-managed default turned off) and the session will follow it reliably.
Almost always that user's client settings - Windows-managed default switched on, or several printers installed with a wandering default. Compare client settings, not server settings.
You can stop the session inheriting client defaults with policy (Do not set default client printer...), which makes the server's own default rule the session. Fully locking printer selection is neither practical nor needed - train users to check the printer name in the print dialog.