Printers and GPPs

[yhttech]

I'm testing out using GPP to map printers with new image that's getting ready for deployment. Print Server is W2k12 R2, x64. Clients are/will be W7 x86. I've installed the printers and the appropriate drivers on the print server and shared them out. The "everyone" group has print permissions to the printer. I created the GPP following this link: PeteNetLive - KB0000492 - Deploying Printers with Group Policy Preferences. The machine is getting the printer policy, I see it linked when I do an RSOP on the machine, however the printers are not showing up. I'm out of ideas, and there's nothing showing up in the application event logs to specify an issue. Can anyone shed light on this?

[snagrat]

Have you installed the 32bit drivers as well as the 64bit ones on the server?

[fredbayker]

Try disabling the point and print restrictions under the user section too.

Alternatively you could try installing them as shared printers if you don't mind having a shared print queue.

[yhttech]

I've tried to install the 32 bit drivers, and I get an error message when trying to install them on the server that the driver is not compatible with this version of the OS. They are shared out on the print server as well.

[fredbayker]

Install the 32-bit either:

 

1. Using print management

2. Upload from a x86 machine. This would mean installing the printer manually using the sharename and the x86 driver. Then check under additional drivers to make sure it's there.

[penfold]

You need the same version of both x64 and x86 drivers. As others have said you can upload them from an x86 client or you may need to move over to a generic Universal driver if you can't find a specific one that works. I found I had to move lots of our old printers from their specific driver to a generic one when we moved from Server 2003 & XP > Server 2008 & Windows 7.