devaltree
12-12-2007, 12:09 AM
I work in a emergency animal clinic. There are two printers designated as quick print stations for the veterinarians issued acer laptops running Windows XP Professional SP2. The printers as well as the laptops are not networked and networking them is beyond my authority.
The problem is that both printers are the same model, P2015, when either printer is hot plugged into any laptop, it will add two instances of the printer, one named "HP Laserjet series P2015 6" and then the same except instead of the number 6 it says "5e". The doctors are always dragging their laptops around so when they unplug and plug the USB into the other printer, it will then copy both the 6 and 5e. The major problem is when they go to print something and try various instances of the printer. The document gets stuck in an error and I usually have to delete all instances of the printer and reboot to cancel the errored document because it wont print to any of them while that error is stuck in that loop.
Ive been working on thi for quite a few days now but all I can find online is an article on hp.com and a Microsoft KB Article that only relates to Vista but is my exact problem. The hot fix is for Vista and it has to be individually requested so I dont see the point.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934633
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01041595&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3435676#
The other thing I found had to do with USB device descriptor ID's talking about unique serial numbers.
QUOTE:Important: A unique serial number should be used for an MFP parent device node. Having a serial number stored in the USB device descriptor will ensure that only one instance of the device node is created, regardless of the USB port that the device is plugged into. This will assure that the properties associated with the device are maintained when the device is moved to a different port. Not using unique serial numbers can lead to undesirable system behavior. For example, a user will find that each MFP function re-installs every time the MFP is plugged into a new USB port. No two devices should ever have the same serial number.
I havent had a chance to look at the laptops at work yet but I was able to find a registry entry in my home system for my HP Deskjet with a HardwareID but I dont really understand that much about USB Plug and Play enumeration.
I just need to know what I can do to have each laptop retain a single instance of the printer and default to it regardless of how often the two identical printers get hot plugged into the laptops.
HP's online chat was a waste of time and dont even support that model. I dont want to call their phone support based on that experience plus Im never free during their business hours so that's what led me to this forum.
oh and also in the software install when I tried just reinstalling the drivers there was an option to install a second printer of the same model. Which I did but nothing changed. I thought of trying to opt out of that part of the installation next time but I havent had the time for that either since I work with the animals as well as help out with the computers.
I was able to get one laptop to just ignore the 5e and use the 6 instance and could hot plug the same printer indefinately by telling it to just use the printer online or offline or something like that and when unplugging the USB you could see the printer in the control panel go offline and online but the moment I tried plugging in the printer in the hall it just copied the 6 and 5e again and wouldnt use the previous default causing the whole scenario all over again.
ANY help would be much appreciated.
~devaltree
The problem is that both printers are the same model, P2015, when either printer is hot plugged into any laptop, it will add two instances of the printer, one named "HP Laserjet series P2015 6" and then the same except instead of the number 6 it says "5e". The doctors are always dragging their laptops around so when they unplug and plug the USB into the other printer, it will then copy both the 6 and 5e. The major problem is when they go to print something and try various instances of the printer. The document gets stuck in an error and I usually have to delete all instances of the printer and reboot to cancel the errored document because it wont print to any of them while that error is stuck in that loop.
Ive been working on thi for quite a few days now but all I can find online is an article on hp.com and a Microsoft KB Article that only relates to Vista but is my exact problem. The hot fix is for Vista and it has to be individually requested so I dont see the point.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934633
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01041595&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3435676#
The other thing I found had to do with USB device descriptor ID's talking about unique serial numbers.
QUOTE:Important: A unique serial number should be used for an MFP parent device node. Having a serial number stored in the USB device descriptor will ensure that only one instance of the device node is created, regardless of the USB port that the device is plugged into. This will assure that the properties associated with the device are maintained when the device is moved to a different port. Not using unique serial numbers can lead to undesirable system behavior. For example, a user will find that each MFP function re-installs every time the MFP is plugged into a new USB port. No two devices should ever have the same serial number.
I havent had a chance to look at the laptops at work yet but I was able to find a registry entry in my home system for my HP Deskjet with a HardwareID but I dont really understand that much about USB Plug and Play enumeration.
I just need to know what I can do to have each laptop retain a single instance of the printer and default to it regardless of how often the two identical printers get hot plugged into the laptops.
HP's online chat was a waste of time and dont even support that model. I dont want to call their phone support based on that experience plus Im never free during their business hours so that's what led me to this forum.
oh and also in the software install when I tried just reinstalling the drivers there was an option to install a second printer of the same model. Which I did but nothing changed. I thought of trying to opt out of that part of the installation next time but I havent had the time for that either since I work with the animals as well as help out with the computers.
I was able to get one laptop to just ignore the 5e and use the 6 instance and could hot plug the same printer indefinately by telling it to just use the printer online or offline or something like that and when unplugging the USB you could see the printer in the control panel go offline and online but the moment I tried plugging in the printer in the hall it just copied the 6 and 5e again and wouldnt use the previous default causing the whole scenario all over again.
ANY help would be much appreciated.
~devaltree