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Updating Add Printer Wizard

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What do I need to do in order to add an HP Laserjet 2500c color printer selection to the HP Manufacturer list in the Add Printer Wizard feature?

Currently we have to manully map to the location where the inf and drivers are located.

The Environment is a Windows NT 4.0 server as a print server.

Thanks

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by shanghai sam

You know, I started to write a somewhat sarcastic answer to your question, because I thought it would be nigh impossible to manually add a print driver to a print server. So, I looked around to see how you would do it, and I have come to find it is not impossible. In fact, you can!

First, you need to modify a file called NTPRINT.INF
This file can be found in %windir%\INF directory on your print server. This is the file that lists all of the printer drivers by printer manufacturer. YOu would have to modify this file, putting in this printer in. Now, HP is listed in the [MANUFACTURER] section of the file, so you don't have to add anything in here. You would then go down to the MODEL SELECTIONS -> [HP] section.
Add your printer name in the left column, then in the right side, put a "= " and the print driver file. Odds are, the file will be a .PPD extension file. Just put in the file name with the extension.
Next, go down to the Installer Sections. Add your printer here, starting with the name of the PPD file the drivers use. Next, you need to set up a CopyFiles line and a DataSelection line. The whole mess will look similar to:

[driverfilename.PPD]
CopyFiles=@driverfilename.PPD,PSCRIPT
DataSelection=PSCRIPT_DATA

So, you need to find this PPD file. Also, it could be a .GPD file, or a .ICM. But most are PPD, from the looks of this INF file. Ok, save this INF file.

by joseph moore

Part 2

At this point, do the Add Printer Wizard. When it gets to the Select Printer section, choose HP, then scroll down until you see your selection! It is really there!
Now, select your printer and click Next. Set up the printer sharing, default printer and test page stuff up as you are want to.
Finally, you get to the Finish button. Click it. Now, it will start to load the drivers.
When it gets to the PPD file you put in the INF for your printer, it will hit an error, since it can't find this file. Now, the part I can't figure out is how to hard code in a path to this PPD file. Nothing I did worked. So, you can cheat on this step. When the wizard askes for the PPD file, there is a Browse button. Click it. It will point to some directory. On 2 different machines, I got two different locations, and I could not find a correlation between these locations and where it was looking in as a default.
(I though it would be in the Registry in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SourcePath but that is not it)
In whatever directory it is looking in when you hit the Browse button, Paste in your PPD file. Then continue with the installation.
If it askes for more driver files, keep copying them from the printer setup into this default directory on your system.

After that, the printer should be installed.

I know this is strange, but try it! It looks sound!

by garytn9988

Thanks Joseph, your information helped me I even copied the printer drivers to the system32\spool\drivers\w32x86 directory and did not run into the problem you mentioned. It seemed to work great.

Stay tuned for a follow-up question related tothis one which I will post.

Thanks again

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