One of our clients called to say that they had a new copier being installed at their site and if we would mind popping by to help out with the install.
It seemed like a pretty straight forward task and we had a bit of time in-between calls so the call came in at an opportune time.
We downloaded what we thought were the newest drivers for the unit:
Now, the 64bit driver installed into the Print Management drivers node with no real issue.
But, when we went to install the 32bit drivers after configuring the printer, adding it to the SBS 2008 Console, and deploying it via Group Policy we received this surprise:
Add Printer Driver Wizard
The selected driver must be installed remotely from an x86 computer using Type 3 (User mode) drivers.
Okay . . . now how exactly does that work again?
Since this was the first time we had seen this message, a bit of searching ensued to figure out how.
That was a tough find:
We needed to navigate to \\MY-SBS\Printers and open the Server Properties, bring up the driver dialogue and “upload” the drivers onto the server from an x86 system as the error message indicated.
But, something still did not jibe.
So, we went back to Konica Minolta’s Web site for the copier to see just what was going on with the drivers.
Now, what is happening right now, this evening, as this post is being written is pretty funky. The driver results page looks different than it did this afternoon while at the client site.
Here is what the driver site looks like now.
Windows Vista 32-Bit Postscript Drivers:
Windows Vista 32-Bit PCL Drivers:
Windows Vista 64-Bit Postscript Drivers:
Now, after looking at all of the drivers, we knew that the Universal Driver was going to be a problem.
We did need a WHQL signed driver though.
The original driver we had downloaded was both the Postscript and PCL 6.1.2.0 driver sets. After extracting them, we found that they contained both x86 and x64 driver directories. It was the 6.1.2.0 x86 driver that was giving us the headache on SBS 2008.
So, on the second venture through the site, we looked at every driver option for the copier and one eventually stood out as the candidate for our solution.
Can you guess which one?!? :)
Yes, it was the 6.3.1.0 driver set dated June 24, 2008 that was our only other specific driver with a WHQL signature. Only, it was not an option for Vista 32bit where we looked for the 32bit drivers in the first place!
We downloaded, extracted, and ran the Add Driver routine in the Print Management console.
Sure enough, the 64bit driver updated to 6.3.1.0 and the 32bit 6.3.1.0 driver installed via the console with no issues either.
Once we had the driver in place, we ran our workstation reboot script and we had all of our Windows Vista x86 machines connected to the new copier.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)
6 comments:
It's this type of nonsense and time wasting that I've decided not to bother hosting printers on Windows x64, but instead using VBScript to deploy a TCP/IP port and attaching the 32bit driver to the port.
Possibly one day vendors will get their act together and start providing decent drivers sets. And Microsoft might actually provide a useful printer management tool, which they've yet to do...
Chris,
I do believe that as the world migrates to an x64 desktop OS base the point will be less and less of a problem.
Manufacturers will have no choice but get their drivers signed for the 64bit platform. This is a good thing.
I agree, the KM site was nuts to work with. And, others are like that too.
It is our preference to replace copiers with HP or Lexmark MFP units of equivalent or better performance due to the ease of use and integration into our SBS networks. Most business folks are not used to the idea of dropping a copier for a "printer" so we don't hear too much from them even when we mention that HP or Lexmark would be a better all around option.
Philip
Oh, and when we got the call, it was because the copier technicians wanted the domain admin username and password to "set things up on the server".
There was a little bit of panic in their voice ... both because of the short notice and the fact that while they do not understand what is going on in the server setup, they know its pretty indepth and requires understanding and experience.
Philip
Hi Phil,
I'm interested in the workstation reboot script you mentioned here?
How does this work?
Cheers,
Troy
Troy,
RebootPC.bat
shutdown -r -t 30 -f -m \\Machine01
shutdown -r -t 30 -f -m \\Machine02
shutdown -r -t 30 -f -m \\Machine03
shutdown -r -t 30 -f -m \\Machine04
The -f forces the machine to reboot despite any dialogue boxes or hung processes.
Change the 30 to 120 or the like to give users more time to save and close their work during office hours.
Philip
Hey Phil,
Thanks for the quick reply. Do you manually create this for each client or generate it automatically?
Cheers,
Troy
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