5. Troubleshooting Driver Problems
Drivers handle communications between Windows and any
piece of hardware. For example, Windows has drivers for video
adapters, keyboards, mice, and monitors, in addition to printer
drivers. For most hardware components, you use Device Manager to
manage printer drivers. For printers, however, you use the printer properties
dialog box.
How to Update a Driver for the Print Server
When you connect a new printer, Windows 7 detects the new
hardware and attempts to install a driver automatically. If the
standard driver causes problems, follow these steps to install a
different driver:
-
Click Start, and then click Devices And Printers. -
Right-click the printer you want to manage and then click
Printer Properties. -
On the Advanced tab, click New Driver to add a
driver. -
The Add Printer Driver Wizard guides you through the
process. You can select a driver built in to Windows, download a
driver from Windows Update, or choose a driver that you have
saved to the hard disk.
Occasionally, a driver installation fails, causing the printer
to stop working. The quickest way to reinstall the driver is to
reinstall the printer by following these steps:
-
Remove any documents from the print queue. -
Remove the printer by right-clicking it and then clicking
Remove Device. -
Use the Uninstall A Program tool in Control Panel to
uninstall any printer-related software. -
Reinstall the printer with the latest version of the
driver. In the Devices And Printers window, click Add A Printer
and follow the prompts that appear.
If reinstalling the printer does not solve the problem, you might need to
remove files related to the driver installation manually by following these
steps:
-
First, stop the Print Spooler service. -
Use Windows Explorer to browse to either the
%WinDir%\System32\Spool\Drivers\W32x86\3\ folder (or 32-bit versions of
Windows) or the %WinDir%\System32\Spool\Drivers\x64\3\ folder (or 64-bit versions of
Windows). -
Inside the selected folder, remove any numbered
subfolders. -
Finally, start the Print Spooler service.
How to Add Drivers for Shared Printer Clients
When connecting to a new printer, clients running Windows can
install automatically drivers that are stored on the print server.
By default, the print server has only the drivers required for the
print server to print. For example, a 64-bit print server running
Windows 7 has 64-bit printer drivers but not 32-bit printer drivers.
Therefore, 64-bit clients running Windows 7 automatically install
the driver from the print server, but 32-bit clients running Windows
7 need to download a driver from Windows Update or prompt users to
provide their own drivers.
While managing the print server, you can store drivers for
different processor architectures for a specific printer, or you can
store drivers for any model of printer you specify. For example, you
can add a 32-bit printer driver to a 64-bit print server and allow
32-bit Windows 7 clients to automatically download the
driver.
To store drivers for different processor architectures, follow
these steps:
-
Click Start, and then click Devices And Printers. -
Right-click the printer and then click Printer
Properties. -
On the Sharing tab, click Additional Drivers. -
In the Additional Drivers dialog box, select the processor
architectures for which you want to store drivers. By default,
only the driver for the server's processor architecture is
available. Click OK. -
In the Install Print Drivers dialog box, select a path
with the driver. For example, if you have installed the 32-bit
version of Windows 7 and you want to provide the printer driver
automatically to clients running the 64-bit version of Windows
7, you should download the 64-bit version of the driver and
select it now. Click OK twice.
Note
FINDING DRIVERS
You cannot select Windows drivers directly from the Windows 7 DVD because all
system files are contained within the \Sources\Install.wim file.
To browse a .wim file, install the Windows Automated Installation
Kit (AIK; available as a free download from Microsoft.com) and use the
ImageX command-line tool to mount the .wim file as a folder. For
example, to mount the Install.wim file to an empty C:\Win7 folder,
you run the commandimagex /mount D:\sources\install.wim 1
C:\Win7. If a hardware vendor
provides only executable files to install drivers, install the
driver on a client computer with the required processor
architecture, and then copy the driver from that
computer.
To store drivers for any printer, follow these steps:
-
Click Start, and then click Devices And Printers. -
Click any printer, and then click Print Server Properties
on the toolbar. -
On the Drivers tab of the Print Server Properties dialog
box, click Add.
The Add Printer Driver Wizard appears. -
On the Welcome To The Add Printer Driver Wizard page,
click Next. -
On the Processor And Operating System Selection page,
select the processor architectures for which you want to install
drivers. Click Next. -
On the Printer Driver Selection page, select the driver
that you want to install from the list of drivers included with
Windows 7. If the driver that you want to install is not
available, you can download the driver and click Have Disk to
select the driver. Click Next. -
Click Finish. -
If prompted, provide a path for printer drivers.
If updating the driver does not solve the problem, or only one
version of the driver is available, you should determine whether
disabling advanced printing features resolves the problem. To
disable advanced printing features for a printer, follow these
steps:
-
Click Start, and then click Devices And Printers. -
Right-click the printer and then click Printer
Properties. -
On the Advanced tab of the printer properties dialog box,
clear the Enable Advanced Printing Features check box and click
OK.
Troubleshooting Point And Print
By default, Windows 7 allows standard users to install only
trustworthy drivers. Windows 7 considers drivers provided with
Windows or drivers provided in digitally signed printer-driver
packages trustworthy. By limiting users to install only trustworthy
drivers, you reduce the risk that a non-trustworthy driver will decrease system stability (because the
driver is unreliable) or perform malicious acts (because the driver
is malware). Windows 7 includes a large number of printer drivers,
so most users can connect to printers while they travel and install drivers on
demand.
In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the ability to install printer
drivers automatically is called Point And Print. You can use the Point And
Print Restrictions Group Policy setting and the Package
Point And Print – Approved Servers Group Policy setting to restrict
Point And Print to specific servers. If you find that Point And
Print fails, verify that the Point And Print Restrictions setting is
not enabled, or add the print server to the list of approved Point
And Print print servers.
If users receive unwanted User Account Control (UAC) prompts,
enable the Point And Print Restrictions policy, and adjust the
Security Prompts settings, as shown in Figure 3.
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