Adding a print driver to a WIn2012R2 server prompts other printers to install new driver on workstations
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I had an issue I've never had before yesterday.
I installed a new HP AIO printer. It wouldn't print with any of existing drivers so I installed (added) the new driver for this printer. Now the new printer worked fine.
Unfortunately within minutes I started receiving calls from users saying they couldn't print to our other HP printer. Some simply couldn't print, in fact their whole application was locked up and had to be force quit, and others were being prompted to install a new print driver (requiring local admin rights of course (lucky for me I enabled print driver installation for normal users through GPO).
Those that clicked "Install" saw another dialog box as the driver installed, and shortly thereafter they received their printout. Those with the hung applications, I had to open the print console, choose the printer, choose update driver, Install, restart their app and they were good to go.
I've installed other like drivers in the past and never seen this issue before, is it common for a new driver for a specific brand's print driver to affect those already installed?
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@Dashrender By chance, was it the HP UPD? If so, when you update it for one printer, it updates for all printers using the UPD. If it's a machine specific issue, that is perplexing. Otherwise, that's your issue.
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No, it was a specific driver for a specific model.
I could understand it if I was using a UPD and updated it.. it would affect everyone using the same UPD, but that was not my case.
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@Dashrender said:
No, it was a specific driver for a specific model.
I could understand it if I was using a UPD and updated it.. it would affect everyone using the same UPD, but that was not my case.
Do you have multiple of the same model? Same principle would apply if you had two, oh, HP LaserJet 400n printers. If you updated the driver on one, it would affect the other.
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Thanks, alas no, I only have 2 HP printers and they are both entirely different. One is an AIO laserjet and the other a normal B&W only laserjet.
I'm guessing that both drivers happen to share DLLs. When the new driver was installed, the old DLLs were overwritten, and now the old printer had to push out the newer DLLs so the workstations matched the server.
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@Dashrender said:
Thanks, alas no, I only have 2 HP printers and they are both entirely different. One is an AIO laserjet and the other a normal B&W only laserjet.
I'm guessing that both drivers happen to share DLLs. When the new driver was installed, the old DLLs were overwritten, and now the old printer had to push out the newer DLLs so the workstations matched the server.
That would make sense, although that is very odd. Oh well.
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i have seen and been through this issue. What we determined was that the print driver that was being installed used a similar either ini or dll file that the new driver updated. That then caused all of the existing printers to need an updated driver on each client. That was a headache for a few days.
