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This entry has been published on 2016-12-13 and may be out of date.

Last Updated on 2016-12-13.

[:en]Basically, deploying printers and printer drivers via GPO is useful and simple. Clients get the drivers from a central print server once, but the print processes afterwards go directly from the client to printer, so you are independent of the server.

Configuration in Windows GPO:

Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Windows Settings -> Deployed Printers

For most driver manufacturers who offer up-to-date driver packages, this works well in most cases.

However, it might happen that the printer is not deployed even if every setting seems to be right.

Have a look at Windows event log:

Event ID 4098 Group Policy Printers: 0x80070bcb Driver not found

In many cases, this happens because the driver manufacturer did not provide a certain information in the driver package. In Windows Print Management -> Drivers area, you see a column “Packaged“, and this value must be set to true! Otherwise Windows clients seem to not accept the driver.

You can also check this if you manually connect your printer from your print server. If a dialog like “Do you trust this printer”, “Drivers needed” etc. appears, the Packaged value of the driver needs to be set to true.

 

Solution

First, get the latest driver from the manufacturer.

Also check you do not have any (or wrong) GPO “Point-And-Print restrictions” enabled for your domain.

If the problem persists,

  • modify the driver’s INF file before you install it on your print server
    • [PrinterPackageInstallation.x86]
      PackageAware=TRUE

      • (same for x64)
  • modify a registry value
    • HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Enviroments\Windowsx64\Drivers\Version-X\{Driver Name} -> PrinterDriverAttributes: Increment existing value by “1”

      • (similar for x64)

Afterwards, restart your print server (or restarting printing queue service should also be enough). Then you should see your printer driver as “packaged”.

 [:]