Why do I not have "Shared printer" within group policy preferences in Win 2008 R2 gpmc?

I have performed some research, and it appears that I can target both XP and 7 clients with group policy preferences to add a shared printer.

This article describes the presence of a Shared Printer item on the New menu in the group policy preferences Control Panel Settings item Printers, but all I have listed are: TCP/IP Printer and Local Printer.

The server which I am using to create the GPO is Windows 2008 R2.

Why doesn't the New Printer option allow me to create a Shared Printer?

Are you in the right configuration container? It only shows up in the User Configuration, not the Computer Configuration (since the user account/profile is required to map to a shared printer).