Question : Problem with Shared HP CP2025dn Network Printer on Server 2003

I installed two HP CP2025dn printers some months ago on our company network. They use RJ45 network cables to hook up to the network and then they are installed on the Server 2003 Enterprise box using HP's PCL 6 driver (not the universal driver, but, rather the one that is not labeled as a universal driver. I think I got it off the original CD that shipped with the printers.).

Since the clients were all XP boxes, this arrangement worked very well. On the 2003 box I configured four printer instances for each physical printer, two color and two grayscale, one of each of those single sided printing and one of each duplex printing. Both duplex and color printing worked without a problem. All the client machines are connected using the simplest method of just going \\server02 and then right-clicking on the printer and choosing "Connect". I didn't fool with setting up local ports, etc. since I like to perform administration tasks on the server and have this take affect on all client machines.

Recently I added a 32 bit Windows 7 box to the network and used the method I just listed above to connect his computer to the printers. Initially the user of this box could print, seemingly without any problems. Soon after I left for an extended vacation the user started complaining that he could only print one document and then he had to reboot to be able to print again. I did some research online but I couldn't find any identical complaints although some looked similar.

In an effort to resolve the problem I setup one of the printers to use newer and different drivers. I downloaded the Universal PCL 5 drivers from HP's website, specifically the drivers that were listed for this CP2025dn printer. I had a lot of trouble with the server wanting to hang for up to two minutes while "installing" those drivers. That is, I used the manual system of unzipping the drivers, then went to the printer properties, went to Advanced, and then chose "New Driver". Since there we two different drivers listed after going through the Have Disk wizard, I tried both drivers - the non-descript Universal PCL 5 driver and the Universal PCL 5 v5.1 driver. Both drivers want to hang during installation and all users started reporting that they either couldn't print at all or that the duplex printers wouldn't print at all.

Today I tried updating to the Universal PCL 6 driver. Installation went very well with no hanging but one XP user has now reported that he can print to the simplex instance successfully but when he tries to print to the Duplex instance he gets an error message that says something like "the printer is not available". The Windows 7 user says he's getting an error message that says "Printer Error" and nothing prints. However, I'm not seeing any error messages logged on the server and the printers on the server are not showing any hung print jobs.

1. Do I need to reboot the server just because I installed different printer drivers? This server is depended upon very heavily for files so I cannot easily reboot it.

2. Can Windows Server 2003 successfully host shared network printers for Windows 7 Clients?

3. Do I need to reconnect the client computers to the shared printers on the server if I change the driver that's used on the server?

Answer : Problem with Shared HP CP2025dn Network Printer on Server 2003

I think I may have resolved this problem. Here's what I did:

1. On the 2003 Server, I installed the Universal PCL 6 Driver on each relevant printer instance. The installation process was smooth and everything went as could be expected - no hanging, no strange error messages, etc.

2. On the Windows 7 computer I deleted all the network printers. Next I connected to this printer using the following method (written from memory, may not be exact): Add Printer Wizard > Local Printer > Create a New Port > Local Port > \\servername\ExactPrinterShareName > Follow Prompts to Install The Correct Driver From Disk  After installing the printer using this method I simply left it this way.

3. On the Windows XP machines I just deleted the printer instances, browsed to the server that has the shared printers using \\ServerName, and then right-clicked on each printer and clicked on Connect. I didn't have to do this on all of the XP machines. I only did this on the one where the user was reporting a problem.