HP Print Driver Configuration

1 Introduction

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The HP Driver Configuration Support Guide describes the HP printer management software used to configure and deploy HP drivers. Three separate tools for configuring and deploying HP drivers are described in detail.

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HP Driver Configuration Utility

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HP Driver Deployment Utility

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HP Web Jetadmin

Driver configuration, or preconfiguration, is an approach to managing the installation of print drivers in a managed network environment. Information Technology (IT) administrators in managed network environments can use HP printer management software to configure the printing defaults for HP printer drivers before installing the driver(s) in the network environment. In other words, IT administrators can preconfigure the driver before deploying it.

For example, a company has purchased several HP Color LaserJet printers to be shared among several workgroups. To reduce printing costs, management wants all of the print queues to print on both sides of the paper (duplex) by default. In addition, to minimize toner consumption, color printing is restricted to specific groups. Several different print servers are in use, each of which has one or more queues to the new devices. Some users can print directly to the new printers over the network.

However, IT wants to apply the same driver configuration to those print queues.

Previously, printers in such a scenario would be installed on each print server and then manually configured with the required settings. The printers would then be manually configured with the required specifications on each direct-print workstation. By using driver preconfiguration technology, this process is greatly simplified. The following examples show how the various preconfiguration tools are used to support different corporate environments:

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If HP Web Jetadmin is used, its queue management capability can preconfigure and create the queue on each Windows printer server in one step. The configuration can be saved and used for later deployments of the same product (regardless of which driver is used for that product). Each print server can then supply configured drivers to all Windows clients. HP Web Jetadmin can also be installed directly on workstations.

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If an internally developed printer and driver deployment process is used, driver preconfiguration can define the proper driver settings before the driver enters that process. After the driver is configured, every subsequent deployment of the driver is installed with the same settings.

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If Novell is used, driver preconfiguration can be used before drivers are loaded to the servers, thereby ensuring that clients are using correctly configured drivers when they connect to the shared print queues.

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If Windows print servers or workstations are used, use any of the three tools to preconfigure the installed drivers. The HP Driver Configuration Utility only modifies the driver so that it reflects the

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specified settings when it is installed (through any method). The HP Driver Deployment Utility packages and deploys drivers. HP Web Jetadmin can both configure and install drivers.

2 Chapter 1 Introduction ENWW