Vista - Samsung Printer / Allow NT 4.0 Driver / No GPEDIT

Hello group, Don in Seattle here.
Here's the full story. I have a new W Vista Home Premium 64bit system. I have a decent color laser printer, a Samsung CLP-300. From the Samsung site, I download their Vista 64bit driver.

I try to install the driver and am given the error message "driver is not compatible with a policy enabled on your computer that blocked nt4.0 drivers"

I found, on a different board (no offense!) the following:

"Here is the answer: You would want to unblock this.

To block the installation of kernel-mode printer drivers
Open Group Policy.
Under Local Computer Policy, double-click Computer Configuration.
Double-click Administrative Templates, and then double-click Printers.
Right-click Disallow installation of printers using kernel mode drivers, and then click Properties.
On the Setting tab, click Enabled, and then click OK. "

I further discover that in order to do this change, to enable nt 4.0 drivers, you must have Group Policy edit. Vista Home Premium 64bit does NOT have this capability. I go to my Run and enter GPEDIT... no such thing on my computer.

So I've got a printer that has a driver that Vista cannot recognize/load/install.

Am I stuck with no printer?
Do I have to just get another printer that (hopefully) has a correct driver? Do I need to upgrade to Vista Pro or Ultimate or something higher?

Don

Hi donnie1967.
Welcome to the forums.

Can you verify that your account on that computer is an administrator and not a standard user. This could be stopping you.

I'm not sure sure about Home Premium but to get to group policy did you try typing in GPEDIT.MSC ?

Also I assume this is where you got the 64 bit driver?
download center SAMSUNG
6'th option on the list on Samsung website. Win Vista(32,64bit)

Let us know. Thanks
Raj

Hello, and thanks for the welcome.

I am indeed the admin, I verified that with the User Control function.

I indeed tried to access GPEDIT.msc, but I receive an error message stating that it is not available with my version of Vista.

And yes, that is the driver I downloaded. The one for the 64 bit Vista version. That's the one I downloaded and tried to install... the one that gave me the error message "driver is not compatible with a policy enabled on your computer that blocked nt4.0 drivers".

Thanks for your reply, maybe you can help me.
Don

Hi donnie1967,
Hmm ok here is one other thing I would try.

Object is to enable the real built in admin account then log in as that account and try the install.

Administrator Account

Raj

Actually, I did buy this computer from another person, and we just left his account on the computer. His was the original account, the original administrator. When I as the new owner created my account, I of course made myself an administrator... but...
So, I will try reinstalling the vista 64 driver from that website tonight. I will log in as the previous owner (I know his password) and install the driver under his name/account and see what happens.

Thank you again
Don

I logged in and installed the 64x Samsung driver as the computer administrator, the previous owner's account, the only account that was on the computer before I brought it home. Still getting the kernel-based driver install error message. Apparently, according to samsung, this driver needs to be user based, not kernel based.

So, despite your last suggestion, Vista isn't recognizing the printer/driver.

Hi Donnie,

I have the Vista Home Premium installed in my computer. I'm am also having the same problem installing my Samsung CLP-600N laser printer.
Have you been able to get your printer installed?

If so, can you PLEASE tell me how you did it.

Thanks in advance.

Jesse

Hi Jesse, I've had no luck.

I think that the printer manufacturers (in our case Samsung) is going to have to step up and create a 64-bit kernel based driver. Vista will be around... I'd recommend that we harangue Samsung to 'get er done'!

I'm going to email them this week and let them know about my printer driver issues. It's a desk paperweight right now, and will be until a functioning driver is released for it.

Good luck
Don

It's October and I downloaded Samsung's supposed new 64 bit Vista Home Premium driver, and to no avail. Still have a nice color laser printer that's collecting dust.

Guess I could sell it for $75 and get a more expensive one... but according to Windows Vista site, this printer *is indeed* 64 bit compatible.

Tell my printer that...

Hey Donnie1967,

I also had the same message with my Lexmark 2600. It worked fine for two months, then I disconnected the USB one day (printer was hooked up to my laptop) and when I plugged it back in, I got this message "driver is not compatible with a policy enabled on your computer that blocked nt4.0 drivers" and was unable to print for a few days.

Well I figured out how to get my printer back. I am assuming that your printer is installed on your computer but just does not have the ability to read the driver and print.

1. Go to: Control Panel >> Printers

2. Right-click on your printer then scroll down to "properties"

3. Open the "ports" tab at the top of the screen

4. Change the port from USB to something else, or you can create a new local port and change it to that.

5. Re-install your printer and then make sure that the new installed printer is using the USB port.

This is what worked for me. Simply deleting the old installed printer software did not work. This was the only way, but at least I can print now. This may not work for you, but it is worth a try.