When you start the add printer wizard on windows 7 or windows server 2008 R2 (and probably windows 8 and windows server 2012) not all your printers are displayed in the list. But all printers are configured to be listed in Active Directory.
Solution:
It seems there is a default limit set to only show 20 directory printers in this list. You can change this amount with a Group Policy:
- Open Group Policy Management
- Add a new policy or edit an existing policy
- Browse Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – Printers Add Printer wizard and edit Network scan page (Managed network)
- Enable the policy and change the value for Directory printers to a higher number. This is the amount of printers you will see in the list.

For migrating printer drivers and setting from a Windows 2003 SBS server to a Windows 2008 SBS server. I first updated all printers on the Windows 2003 SBS server so they have x64 drivers installed. After that I used printbrm(ui) on a Windows 2008 server to export all drivers and settings to a export file. This file I copied to my new Windows 2008 SBS server and tried to import it using printbrm(ui). When finished I got a lot of warnings and errors and most printers were not created. The following event id 37 was logged:
“Printbrm.exe (the Printer Migration Wizard or the command-line tool) could not restore driver HP LaserJet 4200 PCL 6 (Windows NT x86) while restoring print queues from a file. Error reported: 0x80070bb8. The specified print monitor is unknown.
. This can occur if the driver requires a file that Printbrm.exe did not back up or if the user does not have permission to install drivers on the destination computer.”
The problem was not the driver or not enough permissions. But when you take a look at the Windows 2003 SBS server in the printer properties, advanced tab, Print Processor properties, for the failing printers the print processor didn’t use the winprint – raw processor, but a HP and some characters – raw processor.
Solution: For some strange reason the export function doesn’t export the print processor. Change the print processor to winprint raw, make a new export and import that file everything works fine.
After importing if needed it self chooses to use a other print processor available at the new server.
Posted in
Blog,
SBS 2008,
Windows 2008 at July 28th, 2010.
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