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V4 print drivers using RAW mode to send PCL/Postscript have 0 byte spool file

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This article explains how to work around V4 print drivers attempting to send PCL/Postscript data in RAW mode to a printer and producing a 0-byte spool file.

Original product version:   Windows 8
Original KB number:   2779300

Symptoms

V4 print drivers attempting to send PCL/Postscript data in RAW mode to a printer produces a 0-byte spool file.

Cause

V4 drivers are XPS-based drivers. RAW databases aren't compatible. Similar issues occur when using a v3 XPS printer driver (XPSDrv) with Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Resolution

Use XPS_PASS instead of RAW to pass information directly to the print filter pipeline in v4 and v3 XPSDrv drivers. Here's how to proceed with Windows 8:

  1. Call GetPrinterDriver to retrieve the DRIVER_INFO_8 structure.
  2. Check DRIVER_INFO_8::dwPrinterDriverAttributes for the PRINTER_DRIVER_XPS flag.
  3. Choose your datatype based on the presence or absence of the flag:
    1. If the flag is set, use XPS_PASS.
    2. If the flag isn't set, use RAW.

More information

The XPS_PASS datatype was introduced in Windows Vista to pass XPS directly to the print filter pipeline for a v3 XPSDrv driver. That prevents overloading the RAW datatype for v3 drivers. XPS_PASS has replaced RAW for v4 drivers.