Let me preface this with a bit of background. First, I've had a lot of headaches when using EasyPrint over slow links. 1-2 page print jobs end up insanely huge when using EasyPrint, or they end up with incorrect printed results. (missing barcodes, weird artifacts, void-zones, etc...) I've found others reporting similar results, and a variety of fixes for some issues. I cannot change the application that creates the print jobs, so I'm stuck letting Native-Drivers take precedence over the EasyPrint Driver. (group policy -> "Use Terminal Services Easy Print printer driver first" = Disabled)
In most cases, this works perfectly. For problematic printers, I can install a native driver and the print-issues go away completely.
Now for the wrench in the works. In some situations, where the printer is sufficiently old, and the printer driver's name does not match the windows 2008 driver name, (The manufacturer does not make a win2008x64 driver... but there is a "Microsoft" driver), It still defaults to the "Easy Print" driver.
Having previously dealt with older terminal servers... I already knew I could setup a printer driver mapping inf... and nothing from Microsoft suggest it wouldn't work here too. Who would have thought <GASP> it doesn't work </GASP> It appears it functions only in a narrow window of situations, where Easy Print is completely removed and disabled. Is this normal behavior?
What I would have thought would happen:
Expected Results:
A) Client with printer driver X connects... Server has driver X installed... Everything is happy
B) Client with printer driver X connects... Server does not have driver X, maping found in file defined by PrinterMappingINFName, uses alternate driver.
C) Client with printer driver X connects... Server does not have driver X, not found in PrinterMappingINFName, Default to TS EasyPrint Driver
What appears to happen:
A) Client with printer driver X connects... Server has driver X installed... Everything is happy
B) Client with printer driver X connects... Server does not have driver X, Easy Print Driver Installed, Default to TS Easy Print Driver
C) Client with printer driver X connects... Server does not have driver X, Easy Print Driver not Installed, maping found in file defined by PrinterMappingINFName, uses alternate driver.
D) Client with printer driver X connects... Server does not have driver X, Easy Print Driver not installed, not found in PrinterMappingINFName, EventID 1111 and no mapped printer
Is there any hope of being able to use printer driver mappings to override the Easy Print driver? Additional Logging would be nice too...