We had a real struggle getting an HP LaserJet P1606dn working with a client’s Toshiba Tecra S11 rebuilt with Windows 7 Enterprise x64 and printing via RDP.
No matter how many times we re-worked the driver with the updated versions we ended up with the “Windows Remote Desktop Easy Print” driver that essentially broke remote printing.
By the time we managed to get things working by editing the local security policy on the machine to disable RD Easy Print to get remote printing working the printer would disappear after a shutdown or reboot.
No matter what we tried we could not get the printer to show up after a reboot. That was _extremely_ frustrating for the user.
After walking through a number of troubleshooting steps we discovered the following in Device Manager after enabling hidden devices:
- P1600 USB EWS Device Driver
A search on the above turned up results indicating that “EWS” was a Web service built into the printer to allow for management. Now, why the printer would drop out because that particular driver did not get loaded was beyond us.
So, we ran the gamut troubleshooting the problem including downloading the newest available FULL driver version with no success.
We called one of our local partners that does HP warranty work and talked to an expert technician. They pointed us to the following:
- HP driver utility: ntScrubber.exe
Note the location of the utility. The downloaded FULL driver from HP’s site also contained it.
So, we ran it in an elevated state:
And:
The utility created a complete log file of all steps taken to remove the HP LaserJet P1606dn’s drivers. Every folder, file, and registry location touched was found in the file.
After the system rebooted we used the newest version of the FULL driver set to install the printer via USB connection.
We rebooted as a just-in-case measure then checked Print Management where we found the driver version was indeed the most up to date one:
We rebooted a number of times to test and see whether the printer would disappear again.
Neither the printer nor the P1600 USB EWS Device Driver disappeared:
We then used our MiFi cell connection to remote into the affected desktop and test RDP printing for the HP LaserJet P1606dn. We had a second printer connected to the laptop being used to test the setup. RDP print redirection worked like a charm.
Had we known about the ntScrubber utility we would have used it to wipe and reload the HP drivers _a lot_ sooner than we did.
Making hidden devices show up in Device Manager methodology:
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
Hey, guys -- bless your hearts, you just saved my brand-new HP P1606dn printer from being defenestrated.
ReplyDeleteHP's website 'troubleshooting', of course, was totally useless. However, I'm going to post this there now, to save other poor folks from wasting two days as I did.
You da best!