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Printers won't load in NT4

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I have an NT4 Server that will not let any printer drivers load. I suspect registry or file corruption, but don't know how to fix. Any driver I load, even the generic text only driver, will give the error: "Printer driver for Windows NT 4.0 x86 could not be installed. The parameter is incorrect." It also doesn't matter which port I choose, even file. Any Suggestions?

5 replies

by mark

I'm talking about the driver in general. It doesn't matter if you say port LPT1, File, or whatever, the Printer wizard comes back with this error. It also doesn't matter what printer driver. I suspect a problem with ntprint.inf as initially no printers would show listed, but if you told it "have disk" it still gave the error. I copied the ntprint.inf file from another system and now the printer list shows up, but it still won't load any drivers.

by curacao_dejavu

If you have all the queues noted , delete the printers, reinstall sp6a and create the printers again, (you night try just reinstall sp6a first)

else , here are 2 articles to remove the printer and it's drivers.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 102116
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 135406

Leopold

by mark

I had come across the second article but not the first. The first talks about some extra registry keys for network print queues which does apply. I had put the Server back in production this morning. Working with it I was able to somehow get the driver in manually by editing registry keys and copying the files to the spool locations. However, the error still happens when trying to add a printer that is not already installed. I can pick a printer that is already installed and tell it to use the existing driver and it works. Try to replace the driver or use a new printer and I still got the error. Anyway, since it works for this application, I've moved on to other things, but your knowledge base articles are helpful and I have now bookmarked them in case I have to work on this Server again. BTW, reinstalling sp6a was tried unsuccessfully. I believe the problem was in the registry and also a corrupt ntprint.pnf files. All this started from installing a Brother HL5050 printer on an NT4 PDC with software mirrored HDs using their install CD wizard. The driver brpar.sys was locking up the hard disk and causing corruption. The partition table got corrupted and I thought everything was lost, but was able to retrieve the backup partition info from the end of the drive. Then I had to get the printer driver corruption fixed. Thanks for the help.

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