Print Server - Most difficult thing Ive never done...

SouthSeaPirate

I am only a few clicks away from going postal. I dont think Ive ever seen a product so broken; thats all Ill rant. Sorry, its just been one rough day.

To the point, I need some serious help with deploying a print server. First off, the major issue is when I try to install ANY printer, it always fails with random codes. Once I even got 'This operation is not supported'; since when does a print server not support printers?

Also, the other major issue is getting the drivers themselves. All HP drivers are executable, but not all are extractable. Therefore, you can only install one or the other architecture. IE, when trying to launch the application, it states this is a 64bit system (obviously opposite for 32 bit OSes).

What do you guys do to remedy this? I mean if this is the normal process, then why have I not seen the rioting in the streets?

Any tips, advise, or help would be greatly appreciated!

Freshly installed VM; Server 2008 R2.

ptilsen

I have yet to encounter an HP print driver that could truly only be installed with an executable. HP might provide an executable, but you can always extract the driver.

Once you can get the INF for 32-bit, you can load it up in the print server. It's not too hard. Here are some technet links to help:
Update and Manage Printer Drivers
32Bit printer drivers on 64Bit Windows 2008 printer server -- this process is made even easier by installing 7-zip.

Overall, I have not minded the work of done with print servers. There are occasionally some challenges in seamlessly migrating 32-bit print servers to 64-bit, but nothing to crazy. Loading up a fresh print server, rather than migrating an old one, is fairly easy.

SouthSeaPirate

Thanks for the links, however, I still cannot even get that far. I cannot install anything, I get: Operation cannot be completed with different codes like 0x00000043 and 0x000006d9 etc.

Ive tried a few different printers and same result; then finally came across an executable that does not extract. Which obviously creates another issue.

This is a freshly installed OS with no imported drivers. Last server was imported and it was nothing short of a nightmare; as all of the drivers where there, but none were selectable. 'Aditional drivers' selection as the link states is absolutely useless.

ptilsen

Have you disabled the Windows firewall?

kriscamaro68

what are the pritner models you are dealing with? Most hp laser printers will allow you to use the hp universal print drivers and that should take care of most of the printers right there. Are these printers being setup via a network connection? I manage our print server here that is server 2008 r2 and another one at a remote office that is server 2008. I don't have anywhere near the issues that you are describing.

When I setup a printer I get the IP address of the printer setup with the DHCP reservation, Set the printer name in DNS and then while I am on the server I open up devices and printers. Once in there I click add printer and choose add local or network printer as admin. I then click on create a new port and in the drop down select standard tcp/ip port. For the hostname/ip I put the host name that was setup in DNS but you could use the ip address as well. I do not select the check box to query the printer and select the driver. Once you do that it should bring up a prompt for selecting the driver you want. At this point you would click on I have the disk and locate a folder with the correct driver for that printer. It should finish installing and you should be able to print a test page.

Now that you have set the printer up you need to right click on the printer in the devices and printers window and and select printer properties. In the printer properties window click on the sharing tab. Make sure that the pritner is shared with the correct name. you can check the othter 2 boxes if you want. Below that there is a button you can click that says additional drivers. If you click on that you can then select if you want drivers to be available for both 32bit and 64bit clients. It may ask for you to install the drivers for the architecture at which point you could just point it at a folder with the driver already there.

As for drivers only being an executable, I have never seen this be the case in the 100's of printers I have delt with. The driver may download as an exe but at somepoint during the install it extracts the driver somewhere. Usually its in c:\hp or it could be c:\902349080238 (random string of characters.) Also you could check to see if the driver was extracted to a folder under appdata\local, locallow, or roaming as sometimes things get placed there. Sort folders by the date they where created. Now you would look for the driver before finishing the driver install. You would basically click on the exe file and get to the point right before its going to acutally install the driver. At this point the files should be extracted somewhere on the system and it will be a matter of finding them.

I hope this helps with your print server setup.

P.S. is file and printer sharing turned on on the server? Network discovery?

SouthSeaPirate

ptilsen wrote: »

Have you disabled the Windows firewall?

Done both, off and then on. One of my techs mentioned it should be on.

TheShadow

SouthSeaPirate wrote: »

Thanks for the links, however, I still cannot even get that far. I cannot install anything, I get: Operation cannot be completed with different codes like 0x00000043 and 0x000006d9 etc.
.

Are you sure that you have the correct access rights to do an install? I can't be sure with the information given but a hex 43 error generally has to do with a network access error and hex 6d9 is generally something to do with a printer share error. Combining the two might indicate something wrong with permissions to actually perform the task.

Just a thought at least the voices in my head think so.

SouthSeaPirate

See responses in red

what are the pritner models you are dealing with? Most hp laser printers will allow you to use the hp universal print drivers and that should take care of most of the printers right there. Are these printers being setup via a network connection? I manage our print server here that is server 2008 r2 and another one at a remote office that is server 2008. I don't have anywhere near the issues that you are describing. I am dealing with LaserJet, OfficeJet, RICOH, etc... All printers described here are networked. This is a new VM with a fresh install of 08' R2. I've already tried using the universal driver on one printer that I know for a fact uses it (via the already existing print server); same result.

When I setup a printer I get the IP address of the printer setup with the DHCP reservation, Set the printer name in DNS and then while I am on the server I open up devices and printers. Once in there I click add printer and choose add local or network printer as admin. I then click on create a new port and in the drop down select standard tcp/ip port. For the hostname/ip I put the host name that was setup in DNS but you could use the ip address as well. I do not select the check box to query the printer and select the driver. Once you do that it should bring up a prompt for selecting the driver you want. At this point you would click on I have the disk and locate a folder with the correct driver for that printer. It should finish installing and you should be able to print a test page. I do not use DNS and all addresses are static. Other than that, Ive been doing exactly as you describbed here.

Now that you have set the printer up you need to right click on the printer in the devices and printers window and and select printer properties. In the printer properties window click on the sharing tab. Make sure that the pritner is shared with the correct name. you can check the othter 2 boxes if you want. Below that there is a button you can click that says additional drivers. If you click on that you can then select if you want drivers to be available for both 32bit and 64bit clients. It may ask for you to install the drivers for the architecture at which point you could just point it at a folder with the driver already there. Ive been able to get a few 32bit drivers to work on our previous server; though this was a hit or miss (mostly miss). I later was advised it may had been version missmatch (which I never checked before killing off the old VM).

As for drivers only being an executable, I have never seen this be the case in the 100's of printers I have delt with. The driver may download as an exe but at somepoint during the install it extracts the driver somewhere. Usually its in c:\hp or it could be c:\902349080238 (random string of characters.) Also you could check to see if the driver was extracted to a folder under appdata\local, locallow, or roaming as sometimes things get placed there. Sort folders by the date they where created. Now you would look for the driver before finishing the driver install. You would basically click on the exe file and get to the point right before its going to acutally install the driver. At this point the files should be extracted somewhere on the system and it will be a matter of finding them. Right, I understand it must be extracted no matter. But on a 64 system, it will immediately state 'this is a 64bit OS, cannot use 32bit drivers..' or something to that effect. Then immediately closes. I just cant believe its common practice to have to find drivers, matching versions, must half ass execute on another system opposite of current architecture, then find temp directory, then copy to current server, then you finally get to start.

I hope this helps with your print server setup. Dont get me wrong, I really appreciate the help! But from your post, it looks as though Im doing everything correctly, yet still failing.

P.S. is file and printer sharing turned on on the server? Network discovery? Never checked, never knew I had to. I imagine I was set when I intalled Print Services role. What does it need to be?

SouthSeaPirate

TheShadow wrote: »

Are you sure that you have the correct access rights to do an install? I can't be sure with the information given but a hex 43 error generally has to do with a network access error and hex 6d9 is generally something to do with a printer share error. Combining the two might indicate something wrong with permissions to actually perform the task.

Just a thought at least the voices in my head think so.

Server is setup the same way as all others. Im member of an IT group which is in the local admin group on the server. Doesnt seem to be any permission issues that I can tell. Those codes were only examples; I have quite a few more mind you.

ptilsen

It does need to be on. You can have it off for all locations, so long as this service itself is on.

If you have truly done nothing other than install the server, then tried to install a printer, and are getting errors, I would imagine something is wrong with the install media or the host system/virtualization software.

Otherwise, something you've done or something in the environment is causing it. You can Google around and try to figure it out, but since you're starting fresh with a VM I would restart. Grab the latest R2 media, install the server, don't configure anything outside of setup (don't join the domain), and try to add a printer.

I'm not seeing you're doing anything wrong as it is, but I've not had the problems' you're describing, and I've worked with several dozen printer servers in several dozen business across many more printer models. It's not that tricky and generally has been one of the easier aspect of my jobs.

GAngel

Use the universal HP drivers (HP will tell you this as well). I had the same pain doing this from 03/08 upgrade and it will solve 90% of your problems.

1 hour job if you do everything the exact opposite way MS wants you too. It's not an OS issue just crummy programming.

dover

Have to agree with above. Print server setups are pretty much cake-work - as long as you have the appropriate permissions. If it is a fresh install, I'd #@%-can it and start with a new VM. Even if you do manage to get a couple more printers 'working' on the existing install, if there is something inherently wrong with the OS installation you're going to have more headaches in the long run.

Now if you keep having the same problem on a really-really fresh VM....well, burn that bridge when you get there.

kriscamaro68

I agree with ptilsen and dover. Download new media and reinstall fresh and make sure that you install vmware tools if you are using vmware and the hyper-v tools if using hyper-v. If this continues there are other issues at this point that are not related to either permissions or something unrelated to the OS.

Claymoore

Stop using print servers - have everyone print directly to the printer's IP address. You can use Group Policy preferences to deploy IP printers to the workstations. You will still need a print server as a driver repository, but I have always deployed the HP Universal driver ahead of time, and as far as I can tell it ignores the print server during deployment. I know you can turn the server off after deployment and everyone will print just fine.

blargoe

When you encounter these errors, go to your Services and see if the Print Spooler service is running. My guess is that something is jacked up with your Windows install, and the Print Spooler service is crashing when you try to make changes to the print configuration.

W Stewart

The real problem is that your using an HP printer.

veritas_libertas

W Stewart wrote: »

The real problem is that your using an HP printer.

Funny. I've never had problems with HPs, it's the Xerox printers I cannot stand.

SouthSeaPirate

New VM, New OS install, 100% updated. Slightly further, new issues.

So far I have a few printers installed, each 64bit. Now when I go to add 32bit I get an error stating: The specified location does not contain the driver 'Driver name' for the requested processor architecture. This happens to ALL of HP printers and NONE of any other printer brands.

I installed the x86 Universal HP driver directly though the Print Management, driver section. Of course I once again realized that you cannot select this. You must browse; no selection window.

Still looking for that cake walk.

ptilsen

A caveat on sharing 32-bit printer drivers: They driver must have the exact same name as the 64-bit driver for the server to share it.

One workaround if you can't get it added server side is to install the driver (by way of installing a printer that uses it) on a 32-bit system, then connecting to the shared printer on the print server. The server will actually get the driver from the client.