Windows 7 Users unable to add Windows 2003 server printers

Posted by TravBrack on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by TravBrack
Published on 2011-01-07T17:16:29Z Indexed on 2011/01/07 17:55 UTC
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Hi there

I just rolled out a few Windows 7 x64 machines and ran into this issue where non-admin users are unable to add printers hosted on a windows 2003 server. It works fine on a 2008 server. The issue appears to be with the point and print system. A user will attempt to add the printer, a prompt will come up requiring the user to elevate privileges in order to install a driver, and will fail citing 'access denied'.

I found the group policy setting Point and Print Restrictions:

When the policy setting is disabled:

-Windows Vista computers will not show a warning or an elevated command prompt when users create a printer connection to any server using Point and Print.

So I disabled it, verified that the policy was being picked up using rsop, but it still does the same thing. I've also tried the following:

  • Recreating the printers using newer drivers
  • Adding the printer using 32 bit drivers on the 2003 machine, then adding the 64 bit drivers on a Windows 7 machine
  • Adding the printer from a windows 7 machine using print management

None of these things work. The security settings are no different than the working printers. Help?

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