An HP P4015dn - This morning, the bane of my existence
Note: Make sure to read over the comments on this post – there is some excellent advice there as well.
Windows 7 has been very good to me so far, but this morning I was literally pounding my desk in frustration over a printer issue. I just received two brand-new Dell Optiplex 780′s and was in the process of configuring the printers on them when I happened across this little message:
Windows Cannot Connect to the Printer: 0x0000007e
Now here’s the situation. The computers are running Windows 7 Professional x64. The printer (an HP P4015dn) is connected to a Windows XP x86 machine and shared normally. Of all of our printers, this is the only one directly shared with a computer due to a wiring issue I have yet to correct (although now I’m going to make an effort to fix it). I have several other computers running XP and Vista (x86 and x64) that already print this computer without issue, so I was rather stumped. Then I realized I had attempted to install the Vista x64 Postscript drivers instead of the Windows 7 ones.
Unfortunately, Windows 7 no longer provides a dedicated ‘Printers’ control panel, and the ‘Devices and Printers’ one doesn’t have a Server Properties option to let you manage installed drivers. So, I stopped the print spooler service and manually deleted the drivers from C:\Windows\System32\spool\Drivers. When I tried to re-add the printer, though, I got this message:
Windows Cannot Connect to the Printer: 0×00000006
Hmm. Google wasn’t much help, so I went to an old standby – I mannually added the network printer by choosing to create a local port (silly, I know). Here’s how to get this working:
- In the Devices and Printers control panel, choose Add a Printer.
- In the new window, click Add a local printer.
- On the following screen, select Create a new port, and then choose Local Port from the drop-down list and click Next.
- When asked to enter a Port Name, use the full path to the printer. For example, if your printer share is called Dave and is a computer with the name PrintSrv1, you would enter \PrintSrv1Dave as the Port Name. If you receive an error saying The network path was not found, check the computer name and share name, then try again.
- You should be asked to install a driver. Manually download the correct driver (in this case, the HP Universal PostScript driver worked for my HP P4015dn) from the manufacturer’s website and extract it to a folder on your computer. Then click the Have Disk… button in the Add Printer wizard and point it to that folder, then click OK and Next.
- Wait for it to install the driver.
At this point, the printer should be installed and functional. Print a test page to make sure everything worked alright, and then do a little dance (as long as no one is looking)!
12:22 pm, May 27, 2010Jack /
Hey hey Mr Laslow! As always, informative and well written.
Have you stumbled across this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers I know it’s not technical in the least, but the title somehow feels appropriate. The last panel sorta reminds me of the printing escapade during the last D&D session I was able to go to.
12:31 pm, May 27, 2010Laslow /
So very, very true!
4:57 am, June 29, 2010Pascal Feldmann /
The Solution is not very good for system admins with dozzends or hundrets of computers….
8:51 am, June 29, 2010Laslow /
Yes, I’m aware of that. I’ve yet to find another solution that works, though, other than grabbing a cheap USB (or Parallel, depending on the printer) print server and doing a direct IP connection instead.
7:43 am, July 29, 2010erik /
Thanks ever so much for this article, it really helped me!
6:43 am, August 3, 2010Terry /
This is all fine and dandy unless you are trying to add 25 printers for 500 people on 20 different servers and one or two servers has this problem.
3:01 am, August 5, 2010Laslow /
Unfortunately that isquiet a problem, but the only other workaround in that instance would be to add a parallel-based print server and then connect via IP instead.
In my case, I finally fixed my wiring issue and ran a new CAT-6 to the printer (as it has built-in ethernet).
7:31 am, September 3, 2010Ant /
I had the same problem – it turned out to be HP’s 64-bit drivers copying over a wrong dll to the client computers. I’ve documented the problem and solution here… just needs one registry tweak on the server.
http://www.nikrooz.co.uk/?p=26
5:08 am, February 28, 2011ARViox /
Thank you so much.
I almost went crazy on this one.
Thanks for the fix.
7:33 am, April 28, 2011Harry C /
Thank you, thank you. Had the same problem and now it’s working.
11:00 pm, June 19, 2011Jameel Sarangi /
SCENARIO: Print Server Windows Server 2003 R2, station Windows 7 with 64-bit and HP LaserJet P4015n
PROBLEM: Windows 7 64-bit stations can not add HP LaserJet P4015n from print server Windows Server 2003 R2 showing the error 0x000007e
SOLUTION: In the print server, delete the registry key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Printers\[PrinterName]\CopyFiles\BIDI”
CAUSE: The station of user was trying to access a path that the 64-bit operating systems do not recognize as valid: “spool\drivers\w32x86\3″. This path is set in the printer settings on the Print Server.
1:20 am, September 5, 2011Ivan Dretvic /
@Jameel Sarangi
Thanks for this tip – worked a treat in our environment.
-Win2003 print server (32 bit)
-Win 7 x64 machine
-hp M3035 printer driver
have not seen any problems yet with the 5 minutes of testing, but did test the install of the driver on both x86 and x64.
Cheers,
3:28 am, November 28, 2011Ashley /
Also this fix might help out
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982728/en-us
4:56 am, January 2, 2012Jonathas /
Thank you Mr Laslow.
It help me a lot..