Vista - Network Printer Error

I have a HP Laserjet 1200 se PCL 5 printer installed on a Windows XP desktop. When I try to add the printer over the network to my Vista x64 Home Premium desktop, I get the following error:

"The server for the 'HP LaserJet 1200 Series PCL 5e' printer does not have the correct printer driver installed. If you want to search for the proper driver, click OK. Otherwise, click Cancel and contact your network administrator or original equipment manufacturer for the correct printer driver."

I have installed all the possible drivers from the HP site on both the main Windows XP desktop and my Vista x64 desktop. Not only that, I tried connecting the printer directly to my Vista desktop, which works for that computer, but when I try to add the printer over the network to the Windows XP desktop, I get the same error.

Does anyone have any insight into how I could solve this problem?

Hi paolo,

Welcome to the forum.



Try clicking ok and then point Vista/XP to where the driver has installed

Pooch

Thanks for the reply.

I have done that multiple times, it says something like "Windows cannot find a valid driver file."

paoloTheCool

Hey paolo,

I have tried an install on Vista. When asked for the driver you should be able to pick it from a dropdown list as this driver is already onboard

Pooch

The problem is not because of Vista. I also have a vista laptop on this network which works fine with the printer, no problem at all. The problem is that the desktop which is causing the problems is a Vista x64 Bit. There must be some way to get it to work...I have downloaded all the possible drivers and done everything i can think of.

Thanks,
paoloTheCool

Vista x64 works exactly like x32, as I said Vista already contains the drivers when it comes to driver install, one of the options should be a drop down list with all the drivers on it.

Pooch

Well the operating systems might work the same, but the drivers obviously (hence my problem) do not. I googled the problem and a bunch of people with the same problem said that if they put the Printer port as "\\ComputerName\PrinterName" then it worked fine, but that has not worked for me.

paoloTheCool

I'm having the exact same problem Paolo is. I've got a Vista Home Premium x64 trying to connect to an XP machine with a shared HP LJ1200 printer. I've never had this issue before even though I've got another desktop (32-bit) running Home Premium that connects to it fine. I've even tried installing the HP niversal Print Drive on the laptop and connecting that way but I get an error message saying that it can't connect to the printer. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm having the same issue installing a Samsung CLP-510N. Downloaded the drivers, run the install, and while the progress bar is going, it errors out. I don't remember the exact error but it mentions it cannot proceed because of an NT 4.0 policy.
I've tried the network install portion, and then the USB. The USB install had Windows locate the printer fine and point to the correct drivers but as it installed, errored out again.
I tried that, too. Still nothing. I was able to immediately install the windows provided driver for the CLP-550 but it told me it's wrong driver and may not work.

After hours of research, it appears that the drivers for the CLP-510 provided by Microsoft and Samsung are "kernel-mode" drivers and there is some policy within Vista x64 preventing installation of those drivers. I understand that Vista created 30% more policies than XP in attempts to stop the BSOD's. I got that information from Windows users forums on Microsoft.com and the increase is based on end-user submissions (reporting) of programs that stop responding.

I can't find where to possibly disable the policy blocking the kernel-mode drivers. I began wondering if disabling it will allow me to install the existing driver but will re-enabling it still allow me to print? I don't know enough about Windows policies to do that. After even more research, windows used to force non-kernel-mode drivers (aka Win98SE) then it switched to allowing kernel-mode drivers but changed back to disallowing the kernel-mode drivers. I like Vista but until Samsung creates the non-kernel-mode drivers for my printer, I'm stuck. I'm guessing it's the same issue with other printers.

Hi Paolo,

Are you sure the add. drivers for x64 are installed on your XP station ? In my point of view, it's the only reason why you can't install it on vista x64.

Open Printer&Faxes, then Server Properties, and check your x64 driver (for your printer) is installed.
If not, I recommand you to install manually, add driver, have disk, select you INF file (x64 inf file) ...

bos.