tl;dr: How is it possible that Citrix redirected printers appear as network printers instead of session printers? I fear I have a big knowledge gap with Citrix Printer Redirection, and hope Slack can help me. I think I will open a Citrix support case in parallel. Environment:

Windows Server 2019
CVAD 2203.3000
Windows Workspace app 2311

Customer relies on pub apps, no pub Desktops. Printers are mapped as network printers from a Printserver (<- There is Citrix Universal Server installed on the Printserver. There are Igel ThinClients in branch offices, who also start pub apps, but map printers in the session driverless.) Users connect to pub Apps and expect their Printers as mapped session printers, through Pinter Redirection. And here comes the issue if have never seen before: The printers are randomly connected as session printers or network printers. The costumer doesn't have any form of network printer mapping. It's impossible that network printers in the session are generated by GPO or a script. I can prove that the printers are created by Citrix. If I change the number of local mapped network printers, the number of session printers changes. If I change the number of local network printers, the number of session/network printers also changes randomly. I have no idea, how Citrix maps these as network printers, instead of session printers. I fear I do not know something about printer redirection. EDIT1: The creation of the network printers in the session also stops, when I disable the Printer redirection policy. So these network printers, who are supposed to be session printers, are definitely created by Citrix and not GPO or scripts.

It looks like a bug if the behaviour is not consistent. Is the driver used when seen as a network printer the Citrix universal one, is the same than when you see the printer as redirected? Is the network printer work?

Late answer, but it has to do with Direct connections to print servers. This is by design, if I am not mistaken. If the above settings is enabled (default) and the same (native) driver is installed on the VDA as on the printer on the print server this is the correct behavior. So essentially, if you connect a network printer as client printer this is how it goes if the above is true. From top of my head I believe this is how it is.

Oh damn my bad, so sorry 😞 My co-worker solved this a few days after my post here on Slack. In fact, I was aware of that feature, but not how it worked exactly. If you redirect printers, and have Direct connections enabled and are in the same network with your client, they appear as network printers in the session. I didn't know that. They are indistinguishable from mapped network printers. That confused me so much. We disabled the Direct connection to print servers policy, all "fake" network printers are gone, all printers appear as redirected printers, everything works. In this use case, we don't want any direct connections, but only redirected connections. The part with the network printers was so confusing.