Lexmark X736de: Colour option greyed out after firmware update–How to Set Up Monochrome Print Only Driver

We ran a firmware update on a Lexmark X736de that has been in production for a few months.

Today folks are complaining that they cannot print in colour.

Both the SBSe 2011 server and the client workstations show the above Black & White option ticked with no way to uncheck it.

After walking through the various settings with the Lexmark chat support folks we found the following:

Lexmark X736de Properties:

Print Black Only

So, we have inadvertently discovered how to set up a Black and White (Monochrome) print driver for this MFP at this particular client.

Having a black only setup was not requested in this office but we do have clients that are running monochrome only with the exception of a few key folks in the firm.

But, when we do need a monochrome only print setup we can add that option on the server and the clients will pick it up.

• Lexmark X73xde Firmware EC6(.P626) Release Notes

Lexmark MFP for SMB is a Win

For mid-sized offices we are now running almost 100% with the Lexmark X700 series MFPs. They have the best feature set for the price over HP by and far.

For virtualized SBS 2011 deployments the incoming fax to e-mail feature kills as we can deliver all faxes to a SharePoint library with minimal configuration (Set up an MFP with SBS 2011 in our Setup Guide).

We can then eliminate dealing with the built-in SBS Fax setup that can be a bit of a bear to manage between the fax services themselves and finding hardware that will work with the OS.

The X73x series MFP also supports print to fax across the network so anyone needing to send something outbound can do so without the need to print and then fax from a dedicated machine. This saves time and paper.

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.

Windows Live Writer