iPrint and HP Universal Printer Drivers

  • 7001400
  • 19-Sep-2008
  • 26-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell iPrint Client for Windows

Situation

What is a UPD?
What is a bi-directional print driver?
How does the iPrint Client work with these driver types?
How does this affect Printer Driver Profiles?

Resolution

What is a UPD?
The HP Universal Print Driver is the single driver that is configures itself to a range of network print models.   The driver communicates with the physical printer by IP address to determine what features and languages to enable. 

What is a bi-directional print driver?
Bi-Directional print drivers communicate to the network printer.   After an initial setup procedure, Bi-Directional communication automatically updates the printer driver with the printer’s installed options and reports specific information about the printer’s operational status, active jobs, completed jobs, and paper status. 

How does the iPrint Client work with these driver types?
The iPrint Client writes the IP address of the printer to a specific location in the Windows registry during the installation of an iPrint printer.  The registry location is:
 
\\HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\,,ipp://<printername>\PrinterDriverData\NovellSNMPAddressAndPort
 
Novell has coordinated with various printer vendors to allow the print driver to access the IP address so the driver (UPD or Bi-Di) to communicate with the network printer for auto-configuration.

How does this affect Printer Driver Profiles (PDP)?
PDP are temporarily installed to the workstation during creation.  If a UPD or Bi-di print driver is chosen to be configured, the print driver must communicate with a network printer.  OES 2 SP2 introduces a feature to allow the administrator to choose a printer agent during the PDP process.  With the "Requires printer communication" box checked when creating a Printer Driver Profile, the IP address of the network printer is handed to the UPD or Bi-Di print driver so the print driver can be temporarily installed to the Windows OS.  Once the print driver is installed, the options are presented to the administrator.

Novell Recommendation:
Novell recommends:
  • Using the HP UPD version 5.4 (released 01DEC2011) or later.  Previous versions of the HP UPD had installation issues with both Windows 7 and XP.  Some of those installation issues were most prevalent when using the ShortInstallName feature.
  • Installing the follow MS KB patches to Windows 7 workstations.  Failure to install these will result in iPrint printer installation problems.
  • Following KB 7009887 when uploading the HP UPD version 5.4 from Windows XP.

Status

Reported to Engineering

Additional Information

Client Version Information:
The Novell iPrint Client 5.12 is the first iPrint Client to install on Vista, XP, and 2003 operating systems.    Previous 5.x iPrint Clients install only on Vista and the 4.x versioning is reserved for XP/Win2k/Win98.    5.12 does not install on Windows 2000 or Windows 98.  The 4.x iPrint Clients will be available for Windows 2000 and 98, but won't be tested or further developed.