Printer redirection or upgrade may not work because of signed Ntprint.inf file

You may experience either of the following symptoms:

• In Terminal Services, you have created redirected print queues on the server for each queue that exists on the client computer. Print jobs are routed from server queues to client queues by using Terminal Services virtual channels. When a client computer connects, the client enumerates its local printers and sends information (such as the printer and print driver name) to the server. The server uses this information to create a corresponding server queue. If the client queue is associated with a Microsoft-provided driver that is installed on the server, printer creation is automatic and works correctly. However, if a corresponding driver on the server does not exist, the installation does not succeed.
• If you use an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) driver that does not have an exact name match to the name in the Ntprint.inf file, Windows does not install the driver.

Because the Ntprint.inf file is signed, there is no method available to add support for redirection or printer upgrades for supported OEM drivers.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:
In addition to applying the hotfix, you must add two registry values. These registry entries provide the capability for the user to specify an additional .inf file/section combination that defines user-defined mappings from client-side to server-side drivers.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

1. You must add two new values to the registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\rdpwd. The new values are as follows:

   Name: "PrinterMappingINFName"
   Type: REG_SZ
   Data: Name of the .inf file to which you want to redirect lookups.
   
   Name: "PrinterMappingINFSection"
   Type: REG_SZ
   Data: Name of the section in the .inf file to which you want to redirect
   lookups.
   					

   After adding the new registry values above, an .inf file must be created (step 2) or modified (step 3) to include the user-defined mappings from the client-side to server-side drivers. This is explained below.
   
   
2. Example of the format for creating a new inf file: [Version]
   Signature="$CHICAGO$"
   
   [Printers]
   OEM Printer Driver Name = Windows 2000 Printer Driver Name
   
   This file can be created with Notepad and needs to be saved with a .inf file extension. In this example, you would specify the .inf filename that you just created in the "PrinterMappingINFName" registry value and "Printers" in the "PrinterMappingINFSection" registry value.
   
   
3. You can also modify the existing Printupg.inf file in the Winnt\Inf folder (using Notepad) by adding the new mapping to the [Printer Driver Mapping] section. Use the format: OEM Printer Driver Name = Windows 2000 Printer Driver Name
   
   The top section of the Printupg.inf file explains this format. If you modify the Printupg.inf file in this example, you would specify "Path to inf file\Printupg.inf" in the PrinterMappingINFName registry value and "Printer Driver Mapping" in the PrinterMappingINFSection registry value.
   
   NOTE: Do not modify the original Ntprint.inf file. Doing so may break the file signing of the Ntprint.inf file.

For more information about how to edit a print .inf file, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about creating .inf files, click the link:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 2.

For more information about how to install Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 hotfixes at the same time, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: