[Samba] Unable to add Point and Print printers to clients with Windows 8.1 and up

[Thomas Keppler]

Hi all,

the driver hint really helped. The PostScript drivers opposed to the PCL6 ones work fine.
However, isn't this a little strange? What sets these apart in ways that concern the print _server_?

Funnily enough, not even the "SHARP UD3" driver in PCL6 mode has worked. Only the PS version of the original driver (UD3 is PCL6 only).

Big caveat: I still need to test if something useful comes out of the printer if I do it that way, I'm not near the printer's location right now. It's installable now though which is so far so good.
This also made it possible to setup printing defaults which is useful. Windows 10 works like a charm, too.

Another neat trick I found by searching the web, that _hasn't_ helped in my case but might be worth a shot for a lost soul browsing the archives years from now:

> There is a little trick for Canon, Sharp, Konica Minolta printers that makes a system think that the driver is package-aware. To do it, open the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Enviroments\Windowsx64\Drivers\…\Driver name\ branch of the registry on the Print Server and change the value of  PrinterDriverAttributes key for the specific driver by adding 1 to the current value. In my case, the attribute value has been equal to 5, and I have changed it to 6. The same has to be done for the driver attribute in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Enviroments\Windowsx NT x86\Drivers…\Driver name\. After the restart, Canon network printers start to connect without any warnings.

Source: https://woshub.com/unable-to-install-print-driver-after-kb3170455/

It works exactly like it is described above (you need to use regedit.exe on a Windows client with RSAT tools and connect to your print server) but that also didn't change anything for me.

Any ideas what could cause this difference between those two driver types? Is there some Windows protocol magic going on or something that is disabled by Samba?

More questions than answers -- but at least a workaround, it seems. I'll keep you posted if this is a viable workaround for now.

--
Sincerely
Thomas Keppler

> On 28. Feb 2023, at 20:57, Thomas Keppler <winfr34k at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> thank you Stefan for your suggestions. At least the idea with trying a different driver for once seems to have lead me somewhere!
> 
>> On 28. Feb 2023, at 09:04, Stefan Kania via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
>> Did you "disable" the the GPO! Normaly you set GPOs to "enable" to set what the GPO should do, here it must be "disabled"
> 
> Yep, that's what I did. I did so by setting the value in the Registry myself, just to be extra 100% sure it is what it should be per the article.
> Even though it shouldn't make any difference as per my last email -- I was working as a Domain and Local Admin the entire time on purpose to rule this kind of stuff out.
> 
>> So maybe you try a standard driver to see if the problem is the driver and not your settings.
> 
> 
> This seems to have hit it on the head. When I use one of the Brother or HP drivers inside your bundle, everything works again like nothing was ever wrong...
> Matter of fact: It really just works with either driver and really just doesn't with the Sharp one. Like for the other person asking on the mailing list in 2021.
> 
> What I find a little suspicious: For any driver I have provided in the past (included the Sharp one) it opened a dialog box where it copied the driver onto the client's disk.
> It didn't do that for either driver you provided and said "Downloading driver..." instead without additional dialog boxes. Now, could this mean it installed drivers from Windows Update instead? "Downloading" for "copying over the network" sounds a little dated, even for Microsoft. Maybe I'm just being too paranoid and grasping at straws... "It's doing my head in!" :-)
> 
> Does the Sharp driver specifically not working narrow it down to some other GPO and/or setting I can take so that my newer clients will accept it? Keep in mind: The environment in use right now is using Windows 7 and that continues to work like a charm - A very insecure, outdated charm, of course. Replacing the MFC soon is also out of the question.
> 
> Any other suggestion?
> 
> Thanks for all the help so far.
> 
> --
> Sincerely
> Thomas Keppler
>