HP Printers – “Printer driver is not installed” on Windows 2008 R2

Posted on May 17, 2010 by James Rudd

Recently I migrated all our printers from a Server 2003 R2 x32 print server to Server 2008 R2 (x64). During this upgrade all the printers had x64 drivers added and their security settings checked. However, I kept experiencing problems in Print Management with the HP printers reporting the Printer driver is not installed, even after it had been repeatedly added and appeared in list of installed drivers.

Finally I found a Technet discussion on the issue, which correctly identified an incorrect registry value HPTrayCount which is set to 0 when the printer driver is changed, but is not set back to a working value.

This value needs to be changed to 0x12 (decimal 18) for each HP printer for it to work correctly. However, on print servers with lots of HP printers this can be very time consuming. To speed this process I have written the vbscript below which will check if the value exists for each printer, and if it is set to 0 will set it to 0x12.

' For each Printer in Registry check if HPTrayCount exists and is set to 0, then set to 12

'http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverprint/thread/5101195b-3aca-4699-9a06-db4578614e2d

strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Printers"
strValueName = "HPTrayCount"
inHPValue = 18 ' Is equal to Hex 12, makesprinter driver work.

'http://www.activexperts.com/activmonitor/windowsmanagement/adminscripts/registry/#EnumRegVals.htm
const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
strComputer = "."
Set StdOut = WScript.StdOut

Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _
strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

' Get list of Printers
oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, arrSubKeys

For Each subkey In arrSubKeys
  ' Read in HP Tray value
  strPrintPath = strKeyPath & "\" & subkey & "\PrinterDriverData"
  oReg.GetDWORDValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strPrintPath,strValueName,dwValue
  If Not IsNull (dwValue) And dwValue = 0 Then
    'If Exists and 0 then set it to a real value to make it work
    StdOut.WriteLine subkey & ": HP Tray: " & dwValue
    oReg.SetDWORDValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strPrintPath,strValueName,inHPValue
  End If
Next




							

	
			

									
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Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Mail


			

				Posted on February 24, 2010 by James Rudd			


					

				
I have just been setting up a new Windows Server 2008 R2 box up as a terminal server. As part of this I enabled the Desktop Experience feature, however this also enabled Windows Mail.


Windows mail seems to generate large amounts of ESENT messages in the log file as it tries to backup the mail database. It also create 5Mb of files for every user as they logon. As we don’t even use Windows Mail, just Outlook for staff I wanted to disable it.


There appears to be no easy way to remove it from the system, but you can prevent it from setting up the details for every user when the log on.


Download and runs the Microsoft Sysinternals program Autoruns as an Administrator and then under the Logon tab untick “Microsoft Windows” under both the Active Setup\Installed Components and the WOW6432Node\Active Setup\Installed Components.


Now when a new user logs in it will no longer set up Windows Mail files or shortcuts.


Autoruns Windows Mail Disable
Autoruns Windows Mail Disable

							

	
			

									
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Moodle Structure Problems


			

				Posted on June 18, 2009 by James Rudd			


					

				
WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THIS IF YOU DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND IT. YOU CAN DESTROY YOUR MOODLE SITE.


Recently I discovered our Moodle gradebook was playing up and not correctly recording marks from assignments as well as been unable to assign categories from quizes.


I tracked the problem down to the Moodle database losing all its default entries for its tables. The cause is unknown but is quite likely the UTF conversion utility I ran previously to make the system compatible with Asian languages for LOTE.


To fix this problem I needed to recreate the Moodle DB structure and then reimport the data.


Backup


First make a backup. I made a mistake the first time I tried repairing this and the backup I made saved me.


mysqldump -u backupacc -p -Q --opt moodle > moodleBackup.sql


I created a duplicate site with a clean DB (copy the moodle folder and create a new DB) and went through the install. This needs to have all your modules and blocks to ensure all tables are created.


I then dumped the structure from this new DB and the old DB and compared them using Meld (or any other diffing program will work).


 mysqldump -u backupacc -p --no-data --skip-add-drop-table moodletest2 > moodleGoodStruc.sql
mysqldump -u backupacc -p -d --skip-add-drop-table moodle > moodleOldStruc.sql


Using Meld determine if there are any extra tables or fields in your current system that don’t exist in the clean one.


Then you need to determine if it is safe to delete those tables / field in your main DB or if they need to be added to the clean system. e.g. grade_items_history.decimals and grade_items_history.display were in the main DB but not the new one. After searching for it discovered they can be removed (MDL-15985).


After getting them to match you need to dump your Moodle data from your main site.


You can speed up the next steps by reducing the size of backup_log if you wish. Just do a


Delete
FROM `mdl_backup_log`
WHERE `time` <1242777600



Where the time code is calculated as a unix time code from about a month before todays date. This can reduce alot of space of your DB, and improve import/export times.


mysqldump -u backupacc -p  --no-create-info --extended-insert --complete-insert moodle > moodleData200906171559.sql


You need the –complete-insert option to ensure each insert is labelled with field name, in case field order is different. I didn’t do this the first time and needed to restore the backup.


Testing Merge


Now you need to test it. Create a new empty DB and import the Structure then import your data.


mysql -u root -p moodleTest3 < moodleStruc.sql
mysql -u root -p moodleTest3 < moodleData200906171559.sql


Check that no errors occurred during import, this is when I discovered most of my problems with extra non existent field.


Prep for Applying


Put your site in Maintenance mode so no users can login while you are testing this. (i.e. when you restore data site will already be in maintenance mode)


When everything is OK do another backup, as after this you are going to delete it all. (I recommend taking your site completely offline for this, not just maintenance mode. Edit your config.php and temporarily change either the username, password or db name or your database settings.)


Now re-export the Data again (assuming your site has been running while you have been doing tests)


mysqldump -u backupacc -p  --no-create-info --extended-insert --complete-insert moodle > moodleData200906171559.sql


Applying to Site


WARNING: HAVE A GOOD RELIABLE BACKUP BEFORE THIS STEP.  THIS WILL DESTROY YOUR MOODLE SITE.


Now use phpMyAdmin to drop every table in the Moodle main DB. Just use Check All at the bottom and select Drop.


Now you need to redo your test restore above but to your main DB.


Once complete reconnect your config.php file and check everything on your site looks the same. Open some courses, check some gradebooks, have a look around.


When its OK take out of Maintenance mode and you should be good to go.

							

	
			

									
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Google Earth Zenworks Deployment


			

				Posted on February 20, 2009 by James Rudd			


					

				
Google Earth is a great program for schools, as it allows teachers and students to explore the worlds geography and use layers to examine  history, socio-economic information and many other areas.


It used to be fairly easier to deploy on your network, but after version 4.2 it became significantly more difficult if you use a deployment program like Zenworks. A new MSI test was introduced to determine where to install Google Earth. If the current user is not an Admin User it would redirect to [LocalAppDataFolder]Google\Google Earth (usually C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Earth) which made it inaccessible to other users.


As Zenworks uses the System account, which is not an admin user, this would happen when the installer was launched by a student.


To fix this problem there are a few different techniques. You can use either ORCA or Admin Studio Tuner (from Zenworks) to create a transform file that ignores these checks. Alternatively you can use ORCA to edit the msi file directly, I had to use this technique for V5 due to some exisiting problems in the Google Earth MSI.


First download the full version of Google Earth, (V5.0.11337). You should be able to find later versions through Google.


To find what you need to edit you can do a search in ORCA for AdminUser you should find around 3 entries.


The major entries are:


    

  • InstallExecuteSequence: ChangeInstallDirForNonAdmin: NOT AdminUser (Delete this row)
    • 

  • InstallExecuteSequence: setALLUSERS: AdminUser (remove the word AdminUser so it applies to all installs)
    • 

  • InstallUISequence: ChangeInstallDirForNonAdmin: NOT AdminUser (Delete this row)
    • 



You may also wish to remove AdminUser as a Condition from Component: Plus_Registry_wavdest.ax


Once these are removed or modified it should install in C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth regardless of which user is logged in.

							

	
			

									
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