I recently added a Dell 5110CN color laser printer to our network using a print server. Now normally this is not a big achievement, but we have been using Dell 1600 multipurpose printers and let me tell you, you should not use those with a print server. They are fine until someone tries to print from their browser. The 1600’s would lock up every time and not allow any more jobs through.
Back to topic.
I installed the 5110CN and connected to it from my local machine via the print server. I tried and succeeded in printing an email and a web page from my browser. WOOO I was excited. This might be the solution to my problem with network printing. Then I found the BIG problem. I tried to open a Word doc in Word 2007. Word 2007 kept crashing. Well, this isn’t very good. I selected a different printer as my default, and I was able to open the Word doc again. Hmmm well that means it is the printer driver. I went to Dell’s site and downloaded the Vista driver for the 5110CN and installed the printer locally on my machine. This time it worked like a charm. Next, I went into the properties of the printer on the print server and on the Advanced tab I added the Vista driver. It didn’t specifically call out that it was for Vista while loading, but I installed anyway. I then deleted the networked printer on my machine and reinstalled using the administrator account (right click in blank area of the Printers page and select Run as Administrator\ Add Printer) When I reinstalled this time it asked me to verify the driver installation. This time the after installing the printer I was able to open Word 2007 with no problem. So, I’m not sure if the solution was having the print drivers installed locally or having them installed on the print server, but either way it works now. Have a great weekend.
Robba