We recently migrated from a Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012 print server. When recomposing a linked clone pool with the old 2003 server, drivers were taken care of for the printer when the user printed for the first time after desktop recompose. With 2012, any printer using the Point and Print driver doesn't seem to obtain the driver again from the 2012 server. All of our clients are running Windows 7 which means the Microsoft enhanced Point and Print compatibility driver is not installed in the OS natively.
I apparently need to figure out a way to get this installed on the host image so it trickles down to snapshots when recomposing the linked clone pool but I haven't been able to dig much information on doing this. Does anyone out there have any insight on how to accomplish this? If I recompose a pool now for a user who is using a new Point and Print driver, they get the following message that is resolved by removing the printer from their account and re-adding it:
"The 'Microsoft enhanced Point and Print compatibility driver' printer driver is not installed on this computer. Some printer properties will not be accessible unless you install the printer driver. Do you want to install the driver now?"
I figured the easy solution would be to just install a printer using the Point and Print driver and then remove it...leaving the driver behind (unless it cleaned up after itself). The problem with this is in my testing, even after removing and re-adding a printer that set off installation of this Point and Print driver on the client, any other printer that was using it still required the remove/re-add process in order to work, else I got the same message. That tells me that the driver may be custom for each printer installed?
Color me a little confused. I do NOT like the way that Server 2012 handles printers. I've come across a few other issues as well (such as duplex capabilities not being remember on the print server for a printer) that I never had with the 2003 server.
Thanks!!
