Vista - Error 0X000003eb during driver installation

Hello,

I've had a Xerox 6300DN PS color laser printer on a local network for the past 2 or 3 years, with no problems. My older XP Professional desktop crashed recently, and I replaced it with a box running Vista Ultimate 64bit SP2. Although the printer continues to work for other machines, I can't seem to get a printer driver to install correctly on the new Vista box.

The error message is

"Unable to install printer. Operation could not be completed (error 0X000003eb)"

After searching these forums for help, and other places, I can verify that:

1. I'm logged in as Admin
2. The printer spooler service is started, along with its dependencies
3. During the Xerox "web-based" auto driver installer, TCP/IP ports with the printer IP address were created successfully
4. During subsequent attempts at manual installation of the driver, Vista recognizes that a version of the driver has been installed previously, but there is no physical device registered in the Device Manager

As an aside, Xerox customer support maintains that because the error message is a Vista error message, that this is a Vista problem, and not a Xerox problem. Their words, not mine.

With thankful regards in advance,

-geo

OK, so bear with me while I summize what you've done...

You went to Add a Printer, Add a Network Printer, and having given a static
IP address to the Xerox, you let the Vista PC 'find' the printer? And then
it should just install the previously 'installed' drivers.

Yes....... or you did something different?

I have a Xerox 1650N on my network and everything works just perfectly... on
XP, Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7.

If you're using a different method of installtion, please give further
details of exactly what you've done.
--
Cari (MS-MVP)
Windows Technologies - Printing & Imaging
http://www.coribright.com/windows


"geogaddi" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:6f54ef112c89c41821c8ad6b54a05c22@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Hi Cari,

Yes, exactly as you describe. The Vista PC "finds" the printer on the network without a problem, then attempts to install the drivers by first showing a file copy (presumably extracting the drivers to some appropriate location), and then suddenly exits with the error message.

It fails when I choose to either install the drivers that came with Vista, as well as when I try to install drivers manually that I downloaded from the Xerox website.

Thanks,

-geo

this is the error

E:\>winerror 0X000003eb
1003 ERROR_CAN_NOT_COMPLETE


does the Standard TCP/IP Port get created using the network IP for the
device?

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"geogaddi" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:31241b904bbab27199237e838b45008d@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Alan, Cari -

Thanks for your helpful suggestions - I got it to work by deleting the standard TCP/IP ports that were there before, completely uninstalling the driver and starting over from scratch. printmanagement.msc - a wonderful thing!

Thanks! I can print! Whee!

-geo