We recently swapped out 6 Canon Multifunction copiers with Ricoh Multifunction copiers. In the past we would keep the printer name and just change the driver on our print servers and let the changes push down to the client workstations. Since we moved to a W2k8R2 domain and Win7 clients we noticed that while the driver changes are pushed down for the Device Stage information remains the same (See below). Unfortunately this is making the PS (Post Script) driver print gibberish, luckily the PCL (Printer Common Language) driver still works, but we do have a need for the PS driver. We have tried manually removing the previous driver via the print utility but we get an error message stating that driver is still in use, even after we remove the printer form all the user profiles on a client. So we tried manually removed the registry entries, and while that removed the driver it did not remove the Device Stage. Is there a particular method needed to remove this information from a print driver?

Hi, I would like to verify if all the clients show the incorrect information. You can check the properties from network via "view remote printers" button. Niki TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here Niki Han TechNet Community Support

Hi, Have you tried to re-install the printer on the Print Server then deploy it to the client again? Please double click the affected print quque, capture a screenshot. For the device stage information, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff563762(v=vs.85).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee922613(v=ws.10 Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

What I have been doing is: Create a new printer with the same driver on the same port. Verify that the security, settings, and printer defaults are the same. Delete the old printer and re-name the new printer to match the old one. It's a little more work than I would like, and I would prefer to just be able to change the driver and have the device stage change with it.

All Win7 clients in our Domain are having the issue. The driver shows up correctly but the Device Stage information does not, and for the PS driver that causes the printer to produce 50+ pages of gibberish when it is used.

Hello, So reinstall the printer on the print server will update this information right? Device Stage is a new visual interface in Windows 7. This interface can help to alleviate these issues by treating the connected device as a whole with multiple abilities and attributes. Device Stage can help you find and do all of the things that make your devices great. This feature gives you the status of the mobile phones, portable media players, digital cameras, and multifunction printers that connect to your computer, and it allows you to perform tasks that are unique to each deviceall from a single window. When you changed the printer driver but not change the devices, the device stage may not detect the changes in time for some devices. This is because we did not change other information with the device stage. So reinstall the device will help us publish new device stage information to the client. It may seems a little more complicate but it can works. Have you checked if we double click the print queue before reinstalling the printer, what information will you get? Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

How exactly do I change the device? We tried removing the Driver and Package but that left the device stage information, is there another method we should have used? If an uninstall/re-install is the only method what steps can be made to ensure the permissions associated with a printer don't need to be re-created? If I double click the printer queue I get the device stage for the previous driver, while the properties of the printer show the new driver.

Hello, First, Device Stage is purely metadata and does not change the drivers behavior at all. So please dont worry that it will affected the printer usage. And device stage information is just be written when the first time the machine connect to the device. With the driver changed will not change this information always. However, if you would like to change it, you can reproduce the issue and then go to the print server for the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers Then search for the device stage information under the affected printer and change the information manually. Or another workaround is just as what we have mentioned: reinstall the printer on the print server. But as this method will cause the printer permission settings cleared, so I recommend you to search that in the registry. And also you can rest assured to leave it as remain. It will not affected the printer. It is just an information. Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, Any update ? Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Sorry for the delay. The conflicting device stage information does cause "junk prints" with some of the printers using a Post Script (PS) driver in my environment. Printers using Printer Common Language (PCL) drivers don't have the issue in my environment. I haven't had the chance to re-try the issue and remove the registry keys, but I plan to test it this week.

Hi, It should be the printer driver itself caused the issue but not the device stage. Device Stage is purely metadata and does not change the drivers behavior at all. That is to say, the device stage inforamation has no actual function. Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, This is a follow up of the issue. After performing further research and local test, I can reproduce the issue. But this seems like a by design behavior. The data was read from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\<Printer name>\PnPData. If you have a setup application to install a printer by calling the AddPrinter API (wireless printer, printer with custom port etc.), the above registry key will NOT be set until you call SetPrinterDataEx API explicitly. So, after installing the printer by calling AddPrinter(), you will need to call SetPrinterDataEx() to populate the information in PnPData. If you install a printer from the Microsoft Add Printer wizard or plug-and-play, there is no need to call the SetPrinterDataEx() API. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd145084(VS.85).aspx Again, this information will not affect the printing behavior. If you still concern that this information may misleading something, you can manually correct it by changing the key or more easier, delete the key. Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, This is a follow up of the issue. After performing further research and local test, I can reproduce the issue. But this seems like a by design behavior. The data was read from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\<Printer name>\PnPData. If you have a setup application to install a printer by calling the AddPrinter API (wireless printer, printer with custom port etc.), the above registry key will NOT be set until you call SetPrinterDataEx API explicitly. So, after installing the printer by calling AddPrinter(), you will need to call SetPrinterDataEx() to populate the information in PnPData. If you install a printer from the Microsoft Add Printer wizard or plug-and-play, there is no need to call the SetPrinterDataEx() API. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd145084(VS.85).aspx Again, this information will not affect the printing behavior. If you still concern that this information may misleading something, you can manually correct it by changing the key or more easier, delete the key. Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, You are correct that the device stage should not be the reason of the issue. I found an article about event 372, you may check that and hope it can help. Event ID 372 Print Spooler Status http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd393167(v=WS.10).aspx Thanks, SpencerPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Spencer, thanks for the research! I did put some time aside today to re-create the issue and while the behvior remains the same, it appears that after removing the registry keys you found that the issue still occurs. So Device Stage was a Red Herring for me. Also I was mistaken on the junk prints (which is a different issue i'm working on), instead the error state is no prints. Here is what I did to re-create the issue: Environment: Printer Server : Windows Server 2008 R2 hosted in VMware ESXi 5.0 Cluster (VM Hardware/Tools and Windows patched to the latest versions/level) Previous Mufti-function Device : Canon imageRUNNER 5050 New Mufti-function Device : RICOH Aficio MP 5002 Steps to re-create Installed new Printer with Canon imageRUNNER 5050 PS3 driver (PS3_v4.90_Setup_x64.exe). Pointed towards the same TCP/IP port as the current printer (RICOH Aficio MP 5002). This is to mimic the previous setupTest pages to this printer from the server obviously produce junk prints since the driver does not match the hardwareWhen open up the printer in the control panel view the Canon Device Stage information is shownWhen I got to the properties of the printer and change it to match the current printer (RICOH Aficio MP 5002 PS) the driver takes, but when I check the device stage it still shows the Canon infromationA test print to the printer from the server worksI then connected to the printer from 3 workstations: Win7 X86, Win7 x64, and Vista x64. The printer is installed with the correct driver (RICOH Aficio MP 5002 PS) and the Canon device stage infoDuring either a test print or any other print (a PDF from acrobat reader for example) from any of the workstations i tested on, the print arrives at the print server and stays in the queue for a few seconds before dropping out. The following error is logged on the printer server event log (See end of post)I then deleted the registry key PnPData that was associated with the printer. Once deleted the Canon Device stage information is no longer present and instead just the print queue comes up when the printer is viewed on the server. On the local workstations I removed and re-added the printers and experienced that sameAt this point tests prints from both the server and the workstations hit the queue but fail to print, oddly enough only the workstations generate event log errors. I did not test the PCL driver for these printers, as that did not exhibit the problem originally even though they did display the Canon device stage information. In our environment the issue was contained to PS drivers. Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Admin Source: Microsoft-Windows-PrintService Date: 9/6/2012 10:52:23 AM Event ID: 372 Task Category: Printing a document Level: Error Keywords: Classic Spooler Event,Document Print Job User: CORP\jmello Computer: VoxService.voxmedica.net Description: The document Windows_7_Training.pdf, owned by jmello, failed to print on printer RICOH Aficio MP 5002 PS. Try to print the document again, or restart the print spooler. Data type: NT EMF 1.006. Size of the spool file in bytes: 2793459. Number of bytes printed: 16. Total number of pages in the document: 6. Number of pages printed: 0. Client computer: HP033-0411. Win32 error code returned by the print processor: 259. No more data is available.

Thanks for the info, after looking over the TechNet article it appears that the issue was probably related to either the previous or current driver package.