Network printer drivers update

[Michael-from-Virgo]

Hi there,

 

We have Windows Server 2012 print server with number of shared printers.

Clients are Windows 7 - both 32 and 64 bit.

Printers are connected to clients by *.vbs script located in all users Startup directory.

Everything was working fine until we changed the printers drivers.

Originally all printer drivers were type 4, unfortunately those drivers are not compatible with PCounter - software for print accounting.

We changed all drivers for type 3 and now non-admin users cannot update drivers on the client and therefore cannot connect to the printer.

 

Group Policy settings:

Devices: Prevent users from installing printer drivers - Disabled

Print and Point Restrictions - Enabled/Do not show warning or elevation prompt (for both installing new and update existing drivers. That settings is enabled for Computer and User Configuration)

Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these device setup classes - Enabled. Added classes are {4d36e979-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}, {4658ee7e-f050-11d1-b6bd-00c04fa372a7}, {48721b56-6795-11d2-b1a8-0080c72e74a2}

 

On the new installed client systems non-admin users can connect to the printers and proper drivers are loaded, but if the printer was connected before we changed drivers on the server the update is restricted.

Removing installed network printers, removing local user profiles, deleting the drivers from driver store does not help. Adding and installing proper drivers to the driver store (by pnputil) doesn't help either.

 

Any ideas apart from re-ghosting all students computers? Thanks in advance.

 

Regards.

[gds64]

Are the older clients 32 bit? Have you changed the 32 bit drivers on the server as well if that's the case?

[ADMaster]

Also are they older unpackaged drivers.

They was a security update in July 2016 that broke older unpackaged drivers.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/030ee94a-047d-460a-bc39-52351a199364/kb3163912-breaks-point-and-print-restrictions-gpo-settings?forum=winserverGP

[Michael-from-Virgo]

Both 32bit and 64 bit drivers are installed on the print server. Also both 32bit and 64bit clients have the problem.

All installed drivers are packaged.

 

Regards.

[Steve21]

What error is it giving when you try to add them? Even connecting manually should throw an error if it's the GPOs.

 

There's two GPO to for packaged drivers under point and drive, and approved servers. That we set to as a few updates are starting to cause problems if you haven't specified the print servers under the allowed lists (Both point and packaged point)

 

Might be worth setting both of those to point to your print servers (using FQDN) to test it too

 

Steve

[Michael-from-Virgo]

Steve, when the script starts students receive message Permission denied. Staff members were asked for administrator password to update drivers.

I added FQDN of the print server to GPOs and now it looks like staff members can update drivers without administrator's password. Students, however, still getting the same error message.

That is strange cos both GPOs have the same settings for printing and before the change of the drivers both groups were able to connect to printers and install drivers.

 

Regards.