Recently, we had some problems setting up some network printers on computers running 64-bit Vista. We could connect to the print server, but making connections to the individual printers gave us this error. Good times.
The workaround was to add the printer manually, as a local printer. To do this: Go to Control Panel > Printers > Add Printer. Then add a new local printer, using a local port. (Not TCP/IP.) For the name, put in the whole path. This will be something like: \\YourPrintServer\ThePrintersName
Now it will ask you about drivers. (Make sure you have downloaded the 64-bit drivers for your printer.) Choose Have Disk…, and browse to where you saved them. With luck, it will now ask you for what you want to call the printer on your local computer, and you’re done!
This fix worked for every computer we ran into this error for. Good luck!
Posted under: Fixing Stuff
7 comments ↓
Worked for me on Vista 32-bit with a company print server. Thanks!
Worked for me on Win 7 64-bit with network printer. Created local port of \\printserver\printer. Thanks.
I had the same problem – it turned out to be HP’s 64-bit drivers copying over a wrong dll to the client computers. I’ve documented the problem and solution here… just needs one registry tweak on the server.
http://www.nikrooz.co.uk/?p=26
This is actually a bug in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2. You can download the hotfix, but it is not yet available via WSUS or Windows Update.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982728
“Windows cannot connect to printer” error message when you try to create a Point and Print connection to a remote printer from a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based client computer
I also had this problem. However, I vould only fix it by changing the system local language. This page describes it at solution 3: http://www.itexperience.net/2011/02/11/operation-failed-with-error-0x0000007e-when-adding-a-printer/
Thanks for this. For my HP network printer on Windows 7, I had to do this as well — going a step further.
It was necessary to remote the printers, then add them back manually, but when adding back I had to create new ports with names that were shorter an contained only letters. By default, when you create a standard tcpip port, it wants to use the IP address you type in as the name as well. I had to override this and use a text name. Then, when asked if I wanted to keep the existing driver or replace it, it hit “replace” and it copied over the files from its internal safe-cache of them. Finally, it worked.
Worked for me with Lanier/Ricoh printer on Win7-64 (server is 2008 Std). Thanks!
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