Adding printers in Win7

[RabbieBurns]

None of our students are able to add a printer in Windows 7. They were able to add them fine in XP.

 

They are all added to a 2003 server, and listed in the directory.

 

Any ideas what I might have configured wrongly that isnt allowing this?

 

Also, some staff have the same issue too...

[SYNACK]

Does it bring up UAC? http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-vista/22950-solution-mapping-printers-logon-scripts-vista-7-without-uac-interupting.html

Or is there another failure message when they attempt it?

[RabbieBurns]

they get a point blank "Access Denied". I disabled UAC in the image before I deployed them, and i think its kept it off.

 

The same students can add the same printer no worries on an xp machine..

[SYNACK]

Disabling UAC does not kill all of the blocks, it just makes it behave more like XP (dumbly) so it does not give you the option to elevate to do anything requireing admin rights like installing a driver. Try the above group policy anyway as it may still set it to allow the install of drivers from a remote source without elevation.

 

If you are not using seporate GPOs for XP and 7 this can also cause issues if the XP policies have any extra stuff in them left over from old templates or edits.

[mac_shinobi]

Disabling UAC does not kill all of the blocks, it just makes it behave more like XP (dumbly) so it does not give you the option to elevate to do anything requireing admin rights like installing a driver. Try the above group policy anyway as it may still set it to allow the install of drivers from a remote source without elevation.

 

If you are not using seporate GPOs for XP and 7 this can also cause issues if the XP policies have any extra stuff in them left over from old templates or edits.

 

Not sure if this will help - might not even be related but on windows 7 if you go to control panel --> programs and features --> turn features on or off --> print and document services --> tick LPR and LPD options and click ok

 

I have done this for issues when printing to ricoh copiers and it must then use LPR / LPD to print but it works

[RabbieBurns]

Will give it a try tomorrow. Cheers

[sted]

ive given up on vbs for printers (other than setting default) in win7 and use gpo to deploy them

[RabbieBurns]

We dont do anything. All printers are added to a server, shared, and listed in the directory, named by room. Staff and students just add a printer whenever they want to use one.

[macdaddy]

We also are experiencing this problem. Problem is with users in the users group such as students. What we have found is from a 2003 print server this occurs. From a 2008 R2 print server it is fine. I have not tested on 2008 R1. If I push the printers via Group Policy it is fine. From the forums I have read Microsoft is aware of the problem but has no solutions.

[mac_shinobi]

Will give it a try tomorrow. Cheers

 

Did those setting(s) not help then ?

[Ric_]

Have you checked out what I did at http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/54477-install-unsigned-printer-drivers-without-being-prompted.html ?

[RabbieBurns]

Ive not had a chance to revisit this issue yet, will try to get a minute today.. Thanks for the suggestions..

[RabbieBurns]

OK, Ive just tried adding the printer toa 2008R2 Server, and sharing it from there. It added on the windows 7 client under a student account first pop.

 

Will make a new 2008R2 server for printers and start migrating them accross.. Cheers

 

PS. Is this a bug or a feature?

[macdaddy]

OK, Ive just tried adding the printer toa 2008R2 Server, and sharing it from there. It added on the windows 7 client under a student account first pop.

 

Will make a new 2008R2 server for printers and start migrating them accross.. Cheers

 

PS. Is this a bug or a feature?

 

It would appear this is one of those M$ features.

 

Doing further testing it would appear SYNACK's original post does work. He referenced this link [solution]: Mapping printers with logon scripts in Vista&7 without UAC interupting

 

The mistake I made was the policy had computer disabled which is essential for windows 7. So thank you everyone for the assist. For us ramping our print servers to 2008 R2 was not cost prohibitive.

[RabbieBurns]

OK, since moving the printers to a 2008R2 Server, our XP Clients can no longer add printers (when logged on as student)

 

The error they are getting is:

 

"You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer"

[CtrlAltDel]

is the new print server integrated as part of your domain?

Couple of things to try, Have a look through the GPO settings on the server just to make sure there's no printer driver restrictions that could affect things. Also, you could try looking at the driver settings in the print server properties. If the drivers are configured using any specialised windows 7 settings, it could make it incompatible with XP.

You could also try using the admin pack from an XP workstation to connect to the print server and check the settings.

[macdaddy]

OK, since moving the printers to a 2008R2 Server, our XP Clients can no longer add printers (when logged on as student)

 

The error they are getting is: "You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer"

 

Yup we just ran into this also. The problem was our win 7/XP was 32-bit. 2008R2 is only 64-bit. You will need to add 32-bit print drivers to your 2008 R2. The "universal" drivers work best.

[RabbieBurns]

Yup we just ran into this also. The problem was our win 7/XP was 32-bit. 2008R2 is only 64-bit. You will need to add 32-bit print drivers to your 2008 R2. The "universal" drivers work best.

 

How do you add more drivers to the printer once its setup on r2?

[SYNACK]

How do you add more drivers to the printer once its setup on r2?

 

Under the shareing tab in the printer properties there is a button "Additional Drivers" which allows you to add drivers for other platforms like x32 and Itanium. There are other ways to get to the same place but that way works in server 2003 onwards. You need to make sure that the x32 driver is the same version as the x64 one installed as otherwise it may reject the drivers as not the same. I usually end up downloading both at the same time off the vendor site then adding them at the same time. As it links to the drivers you only need to do this once if you mave lots of the same printer on the server as it will automagicly propogate all of the other identical printers with the additional platrom drivers too.

[sted]

the hard part of multiple drivers can be when 08r2 uses its inbuilt divers and if like me you dont do 32 bit win7

[macdaddy]

How do you add more drivers to the printer once its setup on r2?

 

Another method is as follows:

 

You need to go to a 32-bit Vista/win 7 workstation Start\run> \\Printserver and display your shared printers. Double click a printer & wait for it to install. After it installs on the workstation go into the local printers, right click on the network printer you just installed. Select printer properties, sharing, additional drivers and select the x86 box. Click OK and the x86 drivers should upload to the server.

 

I find this to be the easiest method. I also find the universal drivers to work the best.

[netcamit]

Hi Guys,

 

I've done all of above but the client 32 bit WinXP and 7 when adding printers install correct driver but then still come up with error re connecting to printer/s shared from the Win 2008r2 print server. Have since found hotfix from Microsoft to address this prob and a GPO tweak that needs to be added. Link to hotfix and summary is; "Windows cannot connect to printer" error message when you try to create a Point and Print connection to a remote printer from a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based client computer

Hope this may help as well !

Andrew.

[mac_shinobi]

Bit of googling but not sure how relevant it will be for yourself - Just some bits and pieces I found, not sure how useful or helpful it will be - good suggestion from synack ref the drivers ensuring they match up ie both PCL 5 or whatever driver language / type and hopefully versions should be the same or similar

 

The other way to do this is to put all your printers back on the 2003 print server and use the RSAT tool / util on the 2003 server to push out the windows 7 drivers - see below article

 

http://www.nixadmins.net/2009/12/05/using-windows-server-2003-32-bit-print-server-with-windows-7-64-bit-clients/

 

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In both Computer Configuration and User Configuration go to Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Installer and change the "Always install with elevated prifileges" to enabled.

 

You may want to force the change using gpupdate:

A Description of the Group Policy Update Utility

 

I think you're on the right track with disabling the "Prevent users from installing printer drivers". This article from MS states that should resolve the problem. It also states you may need to reboot the server, or force the policy change.

A Description of the Group Policy Update Utility

 

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When you try to connect to a printer on another computer in your workgroup, or on an untrusted domain, even though the Guest account is enabled on that computer, you receive:

 

You do not have sufficient access to your machine to connect to the selected printer.

 

This can occur when your and/or the Guest account does NOT have sufficient NTFS permissions on the Spool folder.

 

To resolve the problem, grant the Guest account, and Users, Read and Execute, Read, and List Folder Contents permissions on the %SystemRoot%\System32\Spool folder.

 

NOTE: You could grant Everyone Read and Execute, Read, and List Folder Contents permissions on the %SystemRoot%\System32\Spool folder instead.

 

If they are HP printers maybe this may apply :

 

Error message when you try to connect to a print queue in Windows Vista or in Windows Server 2008: "Windows cannot connect to the printer. Operation could not be completed (error 0x000006be)"

Edited October 15, 2010 by mac_shinobi

[pjstrns]

Have you double checked your Group Policies? We found that a certain group policy that was set in our 2003 environment did not transfer properly to our 2008 environment. Resetting them fixed our issue.

[Psymon]

Could be something like Point and Print, where you define where users\computers can install printers from. I had a strange problem where i could still install certain pritners after migrating print servers, but not others.

 

Turned out Point and Print was set to the old server (and allowing printers form the new server? possible driver already existed on the machine or something), and once changed allowed me to install all printers (even experienced the problem as admin as we deployed printers on a per machine basis).

 

Simon