Thinking of buying HP2015n Printers, Read this First!

[maniac]

Thought I'd share this nugget of information to help prevent any of you running into the same problems I've just spent all morning figuring out!

 

Firstly, there's nothing actually wrong with these printers, but there are peculiarities in the drivers which seem cause problems when connecting to them on restricted profiles.

 

I found when you try and connect to one of these printers from a restricted profile, you get the error message like 'Cannot connect to printer, you user profile doesn't allow you to install this printer' And before anyone shouts 'security settings' it's nothing to do with them as they were all correct, as they are for the other 50 or so network printers we have.

 

As far as I can work out the printer driver needs to copy some bits to the workstation before the printer will work properly, and it can't do this on a restricted profile so it just fails to connect. BUT if you log onto each workstation as administrator first and establish the printer connection as an administrator, it will then sucessfully connect on that workstation under a resticted profile.

 

Just thought I'd share this information, as I've never come across a printer that does this before, most connect up fine on a resticted profile. It's taken me most of the morning to figure out why it wasn't working, and find a solution that doesn't involve changing peoples previledges.

 

Hope this helps someone.

 

Mike.

[Geoff]

1) Run a script at machine startup that connects to every network printer. Then deletes them. This will load the drivers for you and prevent the above problem occurring. Like so:

 

' Startup script to add network printer drivers at startup

' Author: Ric Charlton, 11/04/07



' Declare variables and enumerate existing printer connections

On Error Resume Next

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Set WshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")

Set oPrinters = WshNetwork.EnumPrinterConnections



' Delete existing connections to network printers (parallel and USB printers will not be deleted)

For i = 0 to oPrinters.Count - 1 Step 2

           On Error Resume Next

    if Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "lpt" And Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "usb" then

            	WshNetwork.RemovePrinterConnection oPrinters.Item(i+1), true, true

           else WScript.Echo "No network printers found"

           end if

Next



' Add printer connections

' Variable to select print server

Dim printServer

printServer = "philyra"



WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\Brother2600"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\gnvqpr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\it1pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\it2pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\it3pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\it4pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\it5pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\lrcpr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\offpr01" 

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\r23pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\r26pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\r26pr02"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\r7pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\sc8pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\staffroom"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\r11pr01"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\r11pr01bw"

WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\lrcpr01"



' Delete connections to network printers

oPrinters = WshNetwork.EnumPrinterConnections

For i = 0 to oPrinters.Count - 1 Step 2

           On Error Resume Next

    if Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "lpt" And Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "usb" then

            	WshNetwork.RemovePrinterConnection oPrinters.Item(i+1), true, true

           else WScript.Echo "No network printers found"

           end if

Next

 

2) Our printer server is Linux/Cups/Samba based. As such it doesn't use the HP drivers. There's a generic postscript driver used on the windows side for all printers. The server then transmogrifies this postscript into the printers specific format. Assistance is available in the *nix forum for anyone interested in setting this up.

[sidewinder]

lol, you scared me for a minute there - over the last few months we have bougth about 30 of them!

 

have to say several of them are in IT suites (where pupils will be printing, with restricted profiles) and I havent come across any problems - and I would have heard if they were doing the same as you

 

So, dunno why it happens to you. How do you assign printers? I use a login script modified from someone on here, and have never had a problem with students printing to a 2015

[Jake]

Like Sidewinder we use a login script (not dissimilar to the one which Geoff posted up there), and havent had any issues with the 2015s we have and restricted profiles.

[mrforgetful]

We use a mandatory profile and no script like above and have had no problems with these.

 

You using PCL5e or PCL6?

[webman]

We use CC3 and have never had a problem with these printers on restrcited profiles.

[maniac]

I tried PCL5 drivers and the postscript version, as well as the HP universal driver that's supposed to work with all their printers, but doesn't! The printers are connected up using a VBscript which has been on our system for over a year without a hitch.

 

The reason I made the post in the first place is because it's the only printer out of all the different models we have that's caused this problem. All the other printers are HP and all connect up fine apart from this one model. We have over 50 networked printers, about 8 different models in total.

 

Cheers for posting that script geoff, I'll modify it for my network and get my machines to run it at startup for the next few weeks, so hopefully they'll all get the drivers loaded that are necessary.

 

Sorry if I scared anyone, it just frustrated the hell out of me all morning trying to find out why the damn thing wouldn't connect, not helped by SLT and the subject leader for that department ringing up every 20mins or so asking if it was done.

 

I'm wondering if some of the group policy modifications we made over the summer have created this problem, but I can't find any settings we changed that relate to printing in any way. Might have a more through look at it tomorrow thou.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike.

[Oops_my_bad]

We've never had this kind of problem and we have tonnes of these 2015's - but we map printers using the computer object itself rather than user scripts

[tosca925]

We have these as well and i map them with a basic vb script. I have never had any problems either. We use a mandatory profile and strict security as well.

 

Oh well, good luck with sorting it.

[Halfmad]

No problems here, I use a script that looks at the OU the computer is in and assigns printers accordingly at user logon. Not had any issues with these ones yet and we've got two running in separate rooms, about 42 PCs using the pair of them.

[mrforgetful]

We use Windows Server 2003 R2 Print Management.

 

Before that we used a script that mapped the specified printer to the computer for any user that logged on.

[billi]

I have been trying to install this p2015n printer on windows 2003 server and windows 2000 server but it comes up with an error message on both the servers under system requirments results "Product type: this product type doesnt match the list of supported product types ".

 

Can someone suggest me how to fix this issue

 

Many thanks in advance

[Oops_my_bad]

Sorry, stupid question - but have you made sure you're downloading the right driver for the platform you're using?

[Kyle]

I know a school that has over 30 of these and run with restricted policies. They map the printers with a logon script and have never had any issues at all.

[billi]

sorry may be it me then, i have looked on hp's website and I can't see any P2015N printer option , shall i just install any of the 4 mentioned printers driver for 2003. I was hoping that the CD that came with the printer shold have the driver for windows 2003 but it doesn't seems to support 2003 or 2000 server at my end.

[Geoff]

The P2015N does exist. I have 5 of them. I can't help with driver problems though unfortunately. Our print server is Linux based, so we just use generic postscript drivers on Windows for all printers.