Server 2008 R2 and HP printer drivers

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

I've posted the same question about a dozen times on the HP support website (about once a day for the past 2 weeks) about which printer driver to use for an Officejet Pro K8600 (large format) printer that will actually print 11 x 17 when I tell it to. And never get a response from any of the HP guru's there.

Another user claims to have solved this problem (running Windows 7 - 64 bit) by chance when a Windows Update session seemed to push a printer driver at him. And now an HP rep is claiming that that is also the answer to my question - that a Windows Update will also offer me the correct driver. In his exact words:

"The driver is written by HP, provided by HP to Microsoft and Microsoft distributes it through Windows Update."

Has anyone here ever heard of such a thing - that a driver that's written by a hardware vendor is made available to end-users only via Microsoft's WindowsUpdate session?

Given that HP provides mega-bytes worth of drivers directly to end users, for practically every windows version, why would Server 2008 and 64-bit Seven be singled out for this treatment?

I will admit that HP's online driver wizard DOES NOT list a Server 2008 driver for that printer. Is it me, or is Server 2008 R2 a very strange and rare beast when it comes to (printer) driver availability?

What should I do (or - how) in Server 2008 R2 to see if WindowsUpdate will push this mythical driver my way?

[cluberti]

This is actually starting to get fairly common - it looks like the last version of the driver they released for server/enterprise use was 9.0.0, and the later versions for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 are shipping with windows (it's on WU for 2008 R2, but it's actually on the Win7 disc natively). The problem with getting an update from WU is that generally you must have an older driver for it to update to the newer software.

What I would recommend, in this case, would be to add the print queue to your 2008 R2 server remotely from a Windows 7 client (browse to \\server, open the printers folder, and add the queue and driver from there) - selecting to create the Standard TCP Port, and browse to HP in the vendor list. You'll see the K8600 driver listed there amongst the other OfficeJet Pro listings, and this will copy the driver from Win7 to the print server when the queue is created, thus giving the driver you need.

[MrJinje]

Did you try this one.

My link

If the installer is limited to Windows 7, then try to run it in compatibility mode. That should trick it into working on W2K8-R2

Edited April 23, 2010 by MrJinje

[cluberti]

The problem with that one is that it's either not going to contain the full driver software compared to previous "IT pro" versions, or you'll get the full driver + software and get random issues on clients that don't also have the full software installed. However, the basic driver will work fine from the server, so it's worth investigating if the feature set is enough to use, or if you need something "more" in the driver (in which case you need the inbox driver, or the full package installed on both clients and server).