The Problem:
So you are reading this because you have deployed Printers via Group Policy which have worked so well until recently. You spent hours troubleshooting and searching the internet for an answer. This dilemma is caused by a change in how Print and Point Restriction policies work. However, the root of the issue is that the printer vendor probably has not released a “Packaged Aware Driver” which is prompting your users with this lovely message or does not connect the printer at all.
However, you realize that some users do not have this problem. This is because any user or computer that had the drivers on the computer prior installing the update KB3710455 was grandfathered into being okay. If you delete the printer drivers from the working machine you will encounter the same issue.
The reason this happens is if you logon to your Print Server and go to Print Management. Then open up “Drivers” you will see all the drivers installed on the Print Server. Every printer that is having the issue will have the “false” value set for Packaged. We need to change this value to “true” in order to resolve the issue.
The Solution:
We need to make a modification to each driver settings in the registry.
For example for this Dell Open Print Driver (PCL5) we need to navigate to the following location
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Enviroments\Windows x64\Drivers\Version3\Dell Open Printer\PrinterDriverAttributes
The setting “PrinterDriverAttributes” needs to be changed from 0 to 1
After you restart your printer server the “Packaged” value will be changed to True. This will allow your computers to download and install the driver. See Drivers that were set to “false” are now “true”.
For added convenience I have provided the Point and Print Restrictions Group Policy Settings I use in our environment. I recommend setting both Computer and User Configuration to the same.
Group Policy Information:
User Configuration > Policies > Admin Templates > Control Panel > Printers > Point and Print Restrictions
Computer Configuration > Policies > Admin Templates > Printers > Point and Print Restrictions
