Terminal Server Does Not Support User Mode Printer Drivers

ID: Q230168

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0, Terminal Server Edition

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SYMPTOMS

When you use a third-party printer driver to print, no output is generated and the server may stop responding (hang). When you print to a file, the resulting file size is 0.

CAUSE

This problem occurs because Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition does not provide support for this type of extension.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q152734 How to Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition, Service Pack 5.

MORE INFORMATION

User-mode printer drivers can be used for modification of the data to be printed. Other uses may be for additional security checks for submitting a print job.

You can find out if a particular printer driver uses a user-mode printer driver when you look into the registry under the following registry setting:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\<printer driver name>\PrinterDriverData

There should be a SPLUserModePrinterDriver entry with the name of the DLL file containg the user-mode printer driver.

Additional query words: tse wts

Keywords :
Version : winnt:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbbug