I have several 32bit windows 7 clients that can't add a HP4350 network printer from a 32bit sindpws 2003 print server. When i tried to add the printer I recieve an error message that states: "Windows cannot connect to printer. Operation Failed with error 0x0000007e" There is also an event logged in the PrintService section of the event log. It says: The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\hpzpnp.dll, error code 0x7e. See the event user data for context information. When I click details to get the context, i get: "Context 101" I have already tried updating the drivers. The odd thing is that if I try to connect to a similiar model printer that is shared from a Windows XP machine, everything works fine. I also don't have a problem adding the printer if the client is windows XP. Is this a problem with the server, problem with how Windows 7 talks to the server? Any thought s would be appriciated. Thanks Joe

Hi Joe, One of the things that can cause such a problem (getting the error 0x0000007e) is when the driver of the printer is NOT the same on different machines (i.e. different version or language), so, better check that first... JJ

Thanks for your reply. I have checked and both the windows 2003 and XP printer servers are using the same driver. Out of despiration I tried somethign that shouldn't have solved the problem....but it did. I tried installing a different printer model. Once that printer install correctly, i went back and tried to add the proginal printer...this time it was added without any issues. Tested the "fix" on two different clients. I have no idea what happened, but added that color laserjet drive seemed to have cleared the road for other drivers. Thanks again for your interest. If you know what happened, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks for your reply. I have checked and both the windows 2003 and XP printer servers are using the same driver. Out of despiration I tried somethign that shouldn't have solved the problem....but it did. I tried installing a different printer model. Once that printer install correctly, i went back and tried to add the proginal printer...this time it was added without any issues. Tested the "fix" on two different clients. I have no idea what happened, but added that color laserjet drive seemed to have cleared the road for other drivers. Thanks again for your interest. If you know what happened, I'd love to hear it. LOL... Good to see the problem has gotten rid of. As for what exactly happened, maybe this is entry 207,844 in the Microsoft Black-Book of logic defying irks and quirks in whatever MS operating system... Take care Joe...

What printer model did you install it as? I have a Windows 2003 Print Server setup and an HP LaserJet 3700 attached with the latest HP Universal Print Drivers (5.1) installed. However, when I try to connect a new Windows 7 32-Bit Pro machine, I get the same error as you. I tried adjusting the drivers to a "generic" HP LaserJet Printer with no luck. Thanks in advance!

This fix is now available http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982728/en-us "Windows cannot connect to printer" error message when you try to create a Point and Print connection to a remote printer from a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based client computerAlan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1

My situation is very similar to Joe's. I have a Windows 7 64 bit laptop that can't add an HP 5035 network printer from a Windows 2003 print server. The print server hosts both x32 and x64 drivers. The printer is using the HP Universal Printing PCL 6 drivers. When I tried to install the printer, it failed with the error: "Windows cannot connect to the printer. Operation failed with error 0x0000007e." The event log had two events: "The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module HPMPW081.DLL, error code 0x7e." immediately followed by: "The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\hpzpnp.dll, error code 0x7e." I installed the Microsoft Hotfix mentioned above, which did absolutely nothing. I then tried to install printers from the network that had different drivers. Most gave me the same error, but a couple of them installed. However, even after I installed those printers, I still couldn't install the 5035, or any of the other problematic printers. Here's what ultimately worked for me: I went to HP's website and downloaded the UPD6 drivers. I installed them on the laptop and ran Install.exe. Picked the Traditional installation mode. Then selected "Add a local printer", rather than "Add a network printer." Created a new Standard TCP/IP port. Entered the name of the printer (without the server name) and unchecked "Query the printer." It then gave me two driver options, and I chose "HP Universal Printing PCL 6 (v5.1)", though I'm not sure it really matters. Viola! The printer successfully installed. Interestingly, even after doing that, I still can't install the problematic network printers the traditional way (by double clicking the share). I still get the same 0x7e error. But in the event log, I only get the second event now. I'd really like to know why this is happening. I have several Windows 7 32 bit computers that have had no trouble with installing network printers, but the three x64 clients have all had problems. Out of desperation I even tried removing BitLocker from the laptop, but after decryption, I still got the error.

this file is a 32bit file "The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\hpzpnp.dll, error code 0x7e." Since the client is 64 bit this will not load. The printer on the server has a registry key that points to a 32bit version of the file. This registry key is created by HP. If you install the same printer using the x64 version of the driver onto x64 2003, HP never creates this key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\PRINTERNAME\CopyFiles\BIDI I asked the HP driver developer who works out of Redmond what this key does and he said this is for the bidirectional network communication with the printer. With consultation from HP, at Microsoft we removed this registry so the x64 machines do not copy down the 32bit driver file from the print server. Once you remove this HP registry key or just the value, the 64bit machines will be able to connect. Alan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1

But if I delete that key, won't I disable bidirectional network communication for the 32 bit clients? And doesn't that mean the printer will no longer tell the computer its status (ie, if there's a printing error)?

The module is used when the device attempts to tell the print queue (on the server) installed options and paper types installed. Error state is sent over SNMP through the port monitor to the server. The spooler service on the server sends printer status updates to all clients connected to the server. I assume you found the key. Alan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1

I did find the key, yes. I deleted it (after backing up the registry, of course) and I had no problems installing the printer on the Windows 7 x64 client. I'll leave it as is for awhile to make sure it doesn't cause any problems with the other computers connected to that printer. But so far it looks good. Thanks, Alan!

You will be fine. MS has been running this way for several years (though only a few 32bit print servers even exist at this time). The registry key is only created by the HP driver when the machine is 32bit, I'm pretty sure HP did fix the co-nstaller with some of the more recent versions of their Universal driver. The registry location was intended for color profiles and platform independent files but looking at the msdn article we never explicitly stated not to add binaries here. The main issue is that HP printers would plop down a 32 bit binary onto the 64 bit machine. This did cause other problems so for Windows 7 a check was added to load the file and if that failed so does the connection http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff548492(VS.85).aspxAlan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1