Add network printer with PowerShell

This is my PowerShwell translation of my colleague’s VBScript solution for mapping network printers with a script.

<#
.SYNOPSIS
Add a Network Printer connection, optionally making it the default printer.

.DESCRIPTION
Uses a COM object to add a Network Printer, and optionally sets that printer
as the default. If an error is encountered, the exception is written to a
file called Add-NetworkPrinter.err in the current $env:temp directory, and then
the script terminates.

This is my PowerShell translation of my colleague's VBScript solution:
http://blog.uvm.edu/jgm/2014/06/11/parting-scripts-add-a-new-network-printer-and-set-it-as-default/

.PARAMETER PrinterShare
The UNC path to the shared printer.
e.g. \\printers1.campus.ad.uvm.edu\ETS-SAA-SamsungML-3560

.PARAMETER Default
Specifies that the printer will also be set as the default printer for the current user.

.EXAMPLE
Add-NetworkPrinter.ps1 -PrinterShare '\\printers1.campus.ad.uvm.edu\ETS-SAA-SamsungML-3560' -Default

.NOTES
    Script Name: Add-NetworkPrinter.ps1
    Author     : Geoff Duke <Geoffrey.Duke@uvm.edu>
#>

[cmdletbinding()]

Param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,
        HelpMessage="Enter the UNC path to the network printer")]
    [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
    [string] $PrinterShare,

    [parameter(Mandatory=$false)]
    [switch] $Default
)

Set-PSDebug -Strict

$PSDefaultParameterValues = @{"out-file:Encoding"="ASCII"}

$ws_net = New-Object -COM WScript.Network

write-verbose "Adding connection to $PrinterShare"
try {
    $ws_net.AddWindowsPrinterConnection($PrinterShare)
}
catch {
    $error[0].exception | out-file (join-path $env:temp 'Add-NetworkPrinter.err')
    throw $error[0]
}

write-verbose "Setting the printer as the default"
if ( $Default ) {
    try {
        $ws_net.SetDefaultPrinter($PrinterShare)
    }
    catch {
        $error[0].exception | out-file (join-path $env:temp 'Add-NetworkPrinter.err')
        throw $error[0]
    }
}

# the end

For use with Group Policy, it will probably be helpful to create a simple Set-DefaultPrinter.ps1 script. But that’s just the second stanza from the script above.