GPFs when Ver 2 and Ver 3 of same driver installed simultaneously

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I have had some GPF's recently on my 2000 workstations and did some research
into the drivers that were installed. I found out that in some cases the
user had installed the HP8000 pcl6 driver both as a version 2 printer driver
and also as a version 3 printer driver (obviously 2 different drivers from
the manufacturer, but they have the exact same name). The version 2 driver
was probably installed right off the bat when win2k shipped, and the version
3 just came out from the manufacturer and they installed it because it was
the latest and greatest. So my question is why can I install both versions
of the driver? Which one does my printer really use? and why does the
printer folder (advanced properties tab - change driver) only give my one
choice for the HP8000 driver and which one am i getting (version 2 or 3)?
Does it default to giving me the version 2 one?
 
Are you using a Print Server computer or printing directly from the
workstation to the printer?

Open the Printers folder
click File, Server Properties
select the Drivers tab
if the "Version" column says
Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000 - this is Version 2
Windows 2000 - this is Version 3

You might see both on a Print Server computer because one is an "Additional
Driver".

For workstations, I suggest cleaning up the print environment (see
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm), then installing
just the driver you need. If you are using a Network Printer (print server
computer), the driver will be downloaded automatically from the print server
computer.

Mixing versions of drivers between print servers and workstations is a know
source of trouble. If you are using Network Printing, I suggest deleting
the printers, deleting the drivers (using the dialog above), clean up the
drivers on the clients, then re-creating the printer and adding it back to
the clients (http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/NetPrinterAllUsers.htm might be
useful for this).

Normally, if the print driver has the same "name" you will only have one -
the new one will replace the existing one; so what you describe would be
unusual on a single workstation (client) computer. If the printer is a true
Windows Network Printer, when you look at the properties of the printer from
the client side (or the Server Properties as described above) you are
actually looking at the properties on the print server, not those on the
client.
 
Back
Top