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Mapping a printer to another printer driver, how do you know what works? - July 04, 2008
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 I have seen several posts in this forum recommending people map HP AIO and Photosmart printers and the like to Deskjets etc. I was wondering how you know what is compatible with what? Experience/testing? I have read the HPprinters_CitrixPresentationServer_408.pdf from April 2008 and for some printers it does indicate what to use..... if you have an OfficeJet xxx then you use this DeskJet xxx etc. My problem is that I have user with a HP C7200 which the preceding document says is not supported.

The reason I ask is because I am getting conflicting information between end user results, the event log and the different farms configuration.
The user successfully printed from our USA farm that has the driver installed, but the event log recorded:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MetaFrameEvents
Event Category: Printer Management
Event ID: 1106
Date: 7/3/2008
Time: 4:29:12 PM
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:
Client printer auto-creation failed. The driver could not be installed. Possible reasons for the failure: The driver is not in the list of drivers on the server. The driver cannot be located. The driver has not been mapped. Client name: (MSAM_bxxxxxxx) Printer: (HP Photosmart C7200 series fax (from MSAM_bxxxxxxx) in session 4) Printer driver: (HP Photosmart C7200 series fax)

So did he print using the UPD? The driver is on the target server and the USA farm lists the printer driver as "HP Photosmart 7200". There are no printer mappings in place in either farm. Our EMEA farm does not have the afore mentioned driver installed at all and the user is unable to print (but has been able to in the past, a statement I find rather dubious since R01 was applied back in 06 I think).
Another complication is that the USA farm has 324 drivers spread over 20 plus servers!?!?!??!........ don't ask, before my time. The EMEA farm has 57 drivers.
So...
1. What is going on?
2. Is there a substitute driver I can implement in place of the C7200 driver?
All the servers in question are Windows 2003 Enterprise SP1. Running Citrix PS4.0 R01, the boss is a bit twitchy about upgrading to R04 because we have had issues before with the IMA service after upgrading.
RE: Mapping a printer to another printer driver, how do you know what works? - July 04, 2008
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 I'd check into the exact name of the print driver on client vs server. I've run into multiple situations where an HP driver can have several names, all being for the same printer, just different iterations. Here's two examples:

HP LaserJet 4000 Series PCL
HP LaserJet 4000 Series PCL6
HP LaserJet 4000 Series PCL 6

or

HP LaserJet 2100
HP LaserJet 2100 PCL6
HP LaserJet 2100 Series PCL 6

All these drivers may look the same or similar in name but they're different. If the client has one version listed above and the server has another, the printer won't connect. I think that's what you might be seeing with the following two drivers:

HP Photosmart C7200 series fax
HP Photosmart 7200

What I'd recommend trying is taking the exact name of the client printer (HP Photosmart C7200 series fax) and map it to what you have installed on the server (HP Photosmart 7200). Have the user reconnect and see if the printer maps, and then try some test prints. If it doesn't work, remove the mapping.

Any problems with UPD and why it isn't mapping/working is a whole nother beast. I'd recommend testing out R04 on a separate test farm. I haven't looked, but I'd bet there's been a few things fixed with printing between R01 and R04.

Hopefully I understood part of your question and answered. :)
RE: Mapping a printer to another printer driver, how do you know what works? - July 08, 2008
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 also, keep in mind that print driver equivalency process is more complex than it looks..
consult http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX108763 (Changes to Printer Properties in the ICA 9.200 Client with Hotfixes PSE400R01W2K3033 and PSE400R01W2K037 and Later) for more details

http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx114079 : Breakdown of the Print Driver Mapping Process
RE: Mapping a printer to another printer driver, how do you know what works? - July 11, 2008
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 Thanks for the info. I have implemented a driver mapping on one of the servers which the user is going to test.

In the mean time I have been doing some tinkering.
I ran Citrixs Stressprinters utility on one of the servers that peridiocally stops printing/experiences spooler crashes. I selected all of the locally installed drivers (I could... more on that later) and they all passed. Some noted warnings such as
-- Begin Log for "HP LaserJet 4" ---

AddPrinter Ver 2.01 (c) Citrix 2006-2007 (pid: 7284)
WARNING: thread id 0x2314 may be stuck on AddPrinter for printer HP LaserJet 41!
WARNING: thread id 0x2314 may be stuck on DeletePrinter for printer HP LaserJet 41!
WARNING: thread id 0x2314 may be stuck on AddPrinter for printer HP LaserJet 41!
WARNING: thread id 0x2314 may be stuck on AddPrinter for printer HP LaserJet 41!
Time elapsed: 135 seconds. Done with 0 errors.

--- End Log for "HP LaserJet 4" ---

should I be concerned?
An 'interesting' point is that the program did not see, so could not test, the HP 4350 PCL6 (NT4 driver!). Another issue is that the log reported no problems with a Deskjet 5900 driver, but examination of the printers folder showed errors with attempts to print a serial job(?)

Are there limitations to this program such as not being able to see kernel mode drivers? Does Citrix expect us not to use kernel mode drivers for the well publicised and well founded reasons, consequently they have coded the program to not even check them?
RE: Mapping a printer to another printer driver, how do you know what works? - July 15, 2008
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 I've worked with the stress printers tool across a few hundred drivers (yes it's sad to say) and I generally don't think much about the warnings when it finishes with "Done with 0 errors". The warnings can mostly be ignored unless obvious signs pop up of driver problems. If you see the print spooler crashing or the printers remaining mapped, then those are usually the problem drivers.

I can tell you from personal experience that kernel mode drivers are big time problems and to replace/remove those things as fast as you can. That's probably the #1 thing not to do (use kernel mode drivers) I've heard in all of the printing forums/documents/videos/conference sessions I've seen. The top of my driver list problems consists of the HP 4250 and 4350 drivers. Those drivers have caused me all sorts of headaches. I've tried the "new" versions as we as the beta versions. They all seem pretty crap to me. I've mapped them to an HP 4100 Series PCL driver (not "...PCL 6" by name) with some luck.

The test I usually do with the stress printers is to do 5 concurrent events with 0 time inbetween, while repeating the test 5 times. Everything is left as default within the test. That simulates 5 users connecting with the same printer at the same time, and done 5 times.

I haven't researched the usage of Stress Printers with kernel mode drivers for reasons stated above, and maybe they were smart and chose not to support kernel mode driver testing. Kernel mode drivers have a bad habit of crashing your entire server and not just making your print spooler crash.

Good luck with your print problems. I'll check back in later.
RE: Mapping a printer to another printer driver, how do you know what works? - July 15, 2008
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 I forgot to mention that I also use Stress Printers in verbose mode as non-default setting. :)
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