HOLD Your .NET 3.0 Deployments

P

pcgeek86

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 14, 2007
Messages
271
An issue came up today and bit us in the ass. .NET 3.0 Framework deployed to 500 workstations, and printers with HP PCL drivers installed, failed. See this thread over at the Ars forums for more info.

This post by someone at Microsoft indicates that it only affects non-English versions of Windows, however, I don't have any foreign versions, and was completely affected by it. Be careful.
 
Ars isn't loading. Can you give any more info? Local LPT or remote TCP/IP printers? Any info?
 
The last update tanked a lot of clients.....so I've held back on this one. Often oddball programs...those users who run Act! or something like that.

Ugly mess to untangle when you have to cleanup .Net too and revert to an older version.
 
We've had 1150/1160 desktop printers affected. Fix is to disable "Enable Advanced Printing Features"

On other printers, we've had to move from a PCL 5e to a PCL 6 driver to resolve the issue.

Removing the .NET 3.0 Framework didn't seem to resolve the issue from my research.
 
This is a good lesson for everyone to learn; Only patch for security or needed features.
 
XOR != OR said:
This is a good lesson for everyone to learn; Only patch for security or needed features.
Click to expand...

The .NET framework is something that ought to be installed for future application development purposes. Our programmers will eventually begin compiling software built around that version of the framework, and as the network administrator, it's my responsibility to make sure that the workstations and servers are prepared to run them.

This is not a patch, it's is a framework version, very similar to your JRE upgrades and patches.

This whole issue is primarily HP's problem, as they have some of the shittiest print drivers around. At my old job, we used Dell and Konica Minolta units, and they were plain and simply, awesome.
 
pcgeek86 said:
The .NET framework is something that ought to be installed for future application development purposes. Our programmers will eventually begin compiling software built around that version of the framework, and as the network administrator, it's my responsibility to make sure that the workstations and servers are prepared to run them.
Click to expand...
But they're not yet, so XOR != OR statement still holds.
 
pcgeek86 said:
The .NET framework is something that ought to be installed for future application development purposes. Our programmers will eventually begin compiling software built around that version of the framework, and as the network administrator, it's my responsibility to make sure that the workstations and servers are prepared to run them.

This is not a patch, it's is a framework version, very similar to your JRE upgrades and patches.

This whole issue is primarily HP's problem, as they have some of the shittiest print drivers around. At my old job, we used Dell and Konica Minolta units, and they were plain and simply, awesome.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, .net is a huge framework who's installation touches most of the system. As such, a lot of marginally written software packages will experience strange behavior when it's installed.

Trust me. I did this dance with .net 2.0 and autodesk.

Only patch for security or needed features. Makes happy administrators.
 
Have you done any research on the .NET framework, or done any development in it? I ask, because I have, and because with a proper understanding of the .NET framework, it really doesn't "touch most of the system." It is a very well-developed framework, and it is designed in such a way that different versions (1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0) can co-exist peacefully on one system, and applications developed with a particular version of the framework will run within the confines of the particular version; They are not backwards compatible. In order to run a .NET v1.1 application, you must install the .NET 1.1 framework.

I am not by any means an advanced developer, nor do I think that I ever will be, however, I have done extensive reading and research on the framework, and have a pretty good understanding of it.

My statement that this is mostly HP's problem still stands.
 
Did you read what I wrote? It's not that I think .net is poorly developed or anything; quite the opposite in fact. It's that other apps are poorly developed. There should be no reason why installing .net 2.0 breaks some features in autodesk short of autodesk being poorly written ( which it is ).

My point is that I don't care why something breaks when I install X package; the fact is that it does break. Therefore, I will not install X package. After having had this happen too many times to count, I've come to the conclusion that only needful patches/packages get installed, and everything else gets ignored.
 
Did you try updating the PCL drivers? Don't use the HP Printer Framework PCL crap they are pushing out either. They released some new PCL drivers for most of their laser printers about a month ago.
 
Yeah, we updated to PCL 6 driver from 5e to resolve the problem. I'm not sure why we weren't using PCL 6 in the first place, but ... w/e. Our network has much bigger issues than that right now anyway.

Sorry for misinterpreting your post, XOR, but I don't personally like being held back from the cutting edge by such trivial issues. Truth be told, I accidentally deployed the framework across all workstations before deploying to a test group. A slight screw-up in my mass patch-approving on Wednesday morning ... *sigh*
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top