RDS printing Server 2012R2

[ashman]

Having a heck of a time getting RDS printing working to HP Laserjet 1606DN printers to print to Windows 7 64 bit workstations. The easy print driver doesn't work, tried installing the HP 64 bit drive, nope, then tried the HP universal driver, nope. I think I read somewhere that the default behaviour on a 2012R2 server may me to try the easy print driver first and if you want it to try an installed driver next you have to turn it on in the local group policy? Anyone have any experience with RDS printing with 2012R2?

 

[ashman]

Anyone?

 

[Cerulean]

On your 2012R2 server, prior to this HP LaserJet 1606dn, what other print drivers did you have installed? Could you export a list and include it here?

And are you using Isolation Mode on all your print drivers?

How many people RDP into your 2012R2 RDS server?

When adding Universal Print Drivers, do you add "HP Universal Print Driver" or "HP Universal Print Driver (v0.0)"?

Do you use printmanagement.msc or do you go to Devices and Printers and work from there?

 

[bman212121]

what kind of printing? Test page? PDF? I've found the universal print driver doesn't work correctly for anything adobe since it defaults to using version "3" of postscript. If you force it to use version 2 it will print out just fine. PCL5 or 6 should work out of the box still.

Is the session printing directly to the printer via server 2012 or through a print server? Does the printer work logged in as a local admin on the server? Does it show as online or offline in devices and printers?

 

[ashman]

This is a new RDS server 2012R2, so I had no print drivers prior to installing the 64 bit HP1606DN drivers. Not sure what isolation mode is.There are about 30 ish people who connect to the server and print.I may have added Universal print driver 0.0 can't quite remember. I went to printers, manage print server to add the drivers. Essentially the HP 1606DN's are network printers installed on the workstations and carried through to the RDS session.

 

[Cerulean]

This is a new RDS server 2012R2, so I had no print drivers prior to installing the 64 bit HP1606DN drivers. Not sure what isolation mode is.There are about 30 ish people who connect to the server and print.I may have added Universal print driver 0.0 can't quite remember. I went to printers, manage print server to add the drivers. Essentially the HP 1606DN's are network printers installed on the workstations and carried through to the RDS session.

OK, that's good . . . let's start from scratch.

Remove all printers from the server.

Now we need to clean up drivers: launch printmanagement.msc --> Drivers --> right click on each driver that didn't come with the OS and select Remove Driver Package. Wipe them drivers out.

Now with a clean table, let's think through this.

With some basic research on the 1606dn model, I am finding that you aren't the only one who has problems getting the 1606dn to work with Windows Server 2012. It appears that HP does not support this printer for Server 2012.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printe...-P1606dn-and-Windows-Server-2012/td-p/4112748

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printe...-P1606dn-and-Windows-Server-2012/td-p/4112748

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...patible-with-server-2012-?forum=winserver8gen

What you can do is to try Windows 8.1 x64 drivers, and if that doesn't work then try Windows Server 2008 x64 drivers. If that doesn't work, try Windows 7 x64 drivers. And if that doesn't work, try the latest version of HP UPD PCL5 (I have read that 1606dn only support PCL5, nothing else). If none of these work, I wouldn't count on being able to get this printer to work.

Also, after you install a driver, right-click on the driver --> Set Driver Isolation --> Isolated.

/startrant

This is one reason why at my company all IT-related purchases must go through and be performed by IT. We've had our France division purchase printers behind our backs that aren't supported by HP for servers and then expect us to make it work. We tried to make them work but was unsuccessful and had to tell them that the printers they purchased are not supported for business environments by the manufacturer of the printer, and that they cannot purchase IT equipment without IT being involved.

When I install printer drivers, I never run an installer. Never, ever do that, especially on a server. Always use printmanagement.msc to add drivers by manually browsing for the *.inf files.

And when it comes to HP UPD drivers, never select "HP Universal Print Driver". Always select the "HP Universal Print Driver (v0.0)" option. This will lead to less problems if you are being specific and are forced to use different versions of HP UPD to get a particular printer to work. I'm saying this from some brutal experiences and as the sole responsible person for printers, printer drivers, and the administration and setup of several print servers at a company having facilities in several countries around the world with over 400 printers of several dozen different printer models made by Brother, Toshiba, HP, Kyocera, Lexmark, and Samsung. Our environment is 85-90% HP. I have a story or two of having to deal with DLL hell and printer drivers in a traumatizing 2-3 literal and consecutive weeks of experience. I feel like an expert on this.

(I also hate inkjet printers. Stop, seriously, just stop. No inkjets!)

/endrant

 

[ashman]

Thanks for the suggestions and I will take your advice, I should like to clarify a few things.

I never run printer installs on servers, as you say, I browse for the .inf file.

I had tried the 2008R2 driver to no avail and then the Universal PCL6 0.0 driver, but since you have found this printer only supports PCL 5, perhaps that is why the PCL 6 universal driver is not working.

Its odd, in my particular environment it all worked fine for RDS on Server 2008R2, but then with 2012R2 its doesn't even though its supposed to be more advanced.

Thanks again.

 

[Cerulean]

HP can be frustrating sometimes. There was one particular printer, now I can't remember its model, where for a few months HP offered a model-specific driver, then stopped offering it and said to use Windows Updates (not acceptable and possible due to administrative policies in our environment) and did this for a season or two, then switched back but only offered HP UPD (which ironically didn't work), then continued to go back and forth.

 

[Demon10000]

Try a different driver. Pick something rather generic, like an he 4000. If that doesn't work, go old school with a Laserjet 4.

I limit the drivers in my environment because they can never buy the same model twice. At one point we had over a thousand printers and 500+ drivers... I have also had enough bad luck with he universal drivers that I don't even consider them.

 

[ashman]

Wound up replacing the printers with HP LaserJet Pro M201dw which I was able to get working by setting up LPV/LPR print queues and using the universal PCL 6 print driver. Thanks for everyones help though.