We have a problem with netwok printing that encompasses many different areas and versions of Windows OSes so I will be posting this in a few different places. Let me lay this out for you. We have a single Server 2008 R2 print server with 300 printers of various models. This print server has both 32 and 64-bit drivers installed for every printer. For the HP printers we are using the HP Universal Printing PCL 6 (version 61.94.3.37) and for the Ricoh printers we are using their PCL6 driver for universal printing version 3.5. All drivers run in Isolation mode and no printer gets published to AD. We have a mix of Windows clients printing to these printers, both XP Pro and Windows 7 32 and 64-bit. Now for the problems: The other day one Isolation host on the server went crazy, processing was hitting 100% and memory was fluctuating and growing a lot. After investigating a little that isolation host was having issues accessing the Ricoh Driver (which was 3.4 at the time). In an attempt to resolve the issue we updated the driver to V. 3.5. This seemed to fix the isolation issues and things calmed down however this is the beginning of many other issues for the clients. Both Windows OS versions (XP and 7) don't seem to be either downloading and installing the updated driver and/or doing so correctly. Clients are now experiencing extremely slow printing, applications such as Word, Outlook, Excel and others open slowly and it can take 2-3 minutes for print dialog boxes to open. In all cases it seems that we have to have a tech delete the printer(s), delete the driver and then re-install the printer to make things better but for some reason, which is really unknown, this process doesn't work for every machine and on some we can't even remove the old drivers at all without booting into SafeMode and doing it that way. With all of that said, are there any suggestions as to why the clients aren't downloading and installing the drivers from the server correctly? How to avoid these issues when we need to upgrade the drivers on the server in the future? Most importantly right now, are there any recommendations or scripts on how to force the deletions of the printer, driver, reset the print spoolers and then re-add the printers in a more automated fashion? I have played with both wmic, pnputil and printuidll and am trying to put something together but without a set solution that will work consistently it becomes a lot more difficult.

Hi, Thanks for the post! Based on your description, it's a server related issue, I recommend you ask this question in Windows Server Print/Fax forum. Thanks for you understanding and cooperation! Regards, Miya This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please 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.

I have but I beg to disagree with your response. I believe that the clients' inablility to download and install the drivers from the remote server correctly is most certainly a client issue and not a server issue. I added the server information to be thorough in the description of the problem.

I have but I beg to disagree with your response. I believe that the clients' inablility to download and install the drivers from the remote server correctly is most certainly a client issue and not a server issue. I added the server information to be thorough in the description of the problem.

We're getting the same problem. A Server 2008 R2 print server, and the Ricoh PCL6 Universal Print drivers, spread across a variety of client machines from XP, through Vista to Win7 I've tried upgrading to the 3.6 version of the driver, and downgrading again to 3.5. I've also tried installing Ricoh's PCL6 drivers (v1.2, not the universal one) but no dice. I've yet to find anything relevant in the event logs. On the client side, we see massive CPU load from whichever program you just pressed print in, and a huge amount of IO from the spooler service.