HP Laserjet 4100 drivers for Windows 2003 Server - installing additional drivers fails

[Mike Podd]

I am running Windows 2003 server and have successfully added the latest drivers for my fleet of Laserjet 4100 Printers. My Windows 2000 and XP clients print to the 4100 - no problems. Windows NT clients will simply not work. I have tried adding 'additional drivers' in the properties and sharing tabs but every time I click the button it simply refuses to acknowledge the .inf file I am feeding it : at the "Printer Drivers for Windows NT 4.0 (x86 processor)" I am pointing it to the hp4100ps.inf file - it reports "Windows
cannot locate a suitable printer driver. Contact your administrator for
help locating and installing a suitable driver." What file is looking for? - I've even tried looking on my 2003 Server Cd for suitable candidates.
I found this link http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00026822 - am I suffering a related problem. Please help I have many 4100N printers and many unhappy Windows NT users unable to print as of today.

[Jon Finley]

Try the following link to the HP 4100 NT drivers.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?pnameOID=29118&locale=en_US&taskId=135&prodSeriesId=83436&prodTypeId=18972&swEnvOID=24

Jon

[Mike Podd]

No joy on that front - the NT 4.0 Drivers I am trying to feed Windows 2003 are the ones your link pointed me to - the latest ones HP provide for the 4100 series on NT - I extract the .inf file for NT 4.0 postscript -tell Windows 2003 to use this file and the error "Windows
cannot locate a suitable printer driver. Contact your administrator for
help locating and installing a suitable driver." I thought maybe it was looking for some drivers on the Windows 2003 server cd either in '386' or 'Printers' folders - but still no joy - I've tried English UK drivers and US drivers and even drivers copied off my other NT 4 servers elsewhere in my organisation - nothing seems to work.

[Jon Finley]

Well.... looks like MS may be blocking up the process.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;282011&Product=winsvr2003

From what I'm reading, it looks like you may have to place the HP drivers on a share (to make installing easier), and have the NT4 systems set up the printer as a local printer going out through a TCP port.

I tried 5 different sets of drivers from HP reportedly for NT, but they wouldn't install on 2003.

I tried hacking the INF file no no luck. I got the 95/98/ME drivers loaded with no problem but the NT side will not go.

You don't think that MS wants us to move away from NT now do you.....? :-(

Jon

[Mike Podd]

Cheers Jon

Will try the MS suggested workaround on Monday when I get back to the office. Many thanks for your efforts - at least the KB article gives me something to go on and heartens me that I'm not going mad or was being stupid. Looks like it's a genuine MS - HP problem!

Will post tomorrows results, successful or not!

Cheers

[Rune J. Winje]

Start DSA.MSC
Go to the OU where the server is located.
Properties on the OU
Group Policy
Select the GPO and click Edit
Expand Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Printers

Here you should see the setting
"Disallow installation of printers using kernel-mode drivers"

If it is "Not configured" it means actually it is set to disabled for Windows XP, but for WS2003 it means Enabled.

You need to set this to disabled for WS2003 in other words.

If your server is part of a domain or site there could be be policies set higher up in the hierarchy which could override your settings.



Cheers,
Rune

[Richard Darling]

Hi Mike,
I have a standalone Windows 2003 Server, and was having the same problem. The only, and simple, solution was to add the printer as a local printer to the NT workstations.

The important thing that anyone doing that has to remember is to add the lpr printing service, and then add the printer, selecting a TCP/IP printer. They'll need the NT install disk to get the files from the I386 directory.
Richard

[Mike Podd]

Ok, I set the Default Domain Policy to - disable the "Disallow installation of printers using Kernel-mode drivers" - but to no avail (even at our top level of Default Domain Policy) - no joy on that front.

However, Richard's suggestion of setting the printers up locally seemed to work nicely - a cheeky bodge job but it's got me out of a pickle temporarily. So thanks for that one.

Incidentally I tried the installation of a Laserjet 4000 series - on my 2003 server box and amazingly added the NT drivers first time!!! - so it definitely is a driver issue with the 4100 it appears.

I've also added the 4100 drivers on another of my servers (running NT 4.0 server) and this works fine for my legacy NT Workstations - not sure if it's ok to have my 2003 Server and an NT 4.0 server both set up as network print servers for the same 4100s though. ?!?.

Ideally I would love to find a driver for the 4100 that supports NT but will sit happily on Windows 2003 - the search goes on!

[Richard Darling]

Hi Mike,
Glad that it helped.... don't understand those wauords you ah usin..can't be the same motha language we use heyah in Bawstin, Massachusetts.

Richard