Posted by Devin Anderson
Printer drivers are the vital intermediary between the client and the printer. If a print driver is outdated, it could result in reduced printing functionality at the very minimum. If a print driver is incompatible, it will likely result in the end user’s inability to print altogether. In a print server environment, it could even cause conflicts with other printer drivers that will affect the entire client pool.
At the same time, it’s not always easy to be absolutely certain that a given printer driver is the right one in every instance. The printer driver has to be fully compatible with your client OS, your server platform, and the make and specific model of the destination printing device. Should one of those fall short, you and your end users are in for reduced printing functionality and hard-to-troubleshoot printing errors. Solving printer driver conflicts like those can easily eat up several hours of an admin’s valuable time.
And even then it’s not enough just to have a print driver that aligns with all those strict parameters. In traditional print environments that aren’t robust toward printer driver conflicts, printer drivers still have to be thoroughly tested to make sure they play nicely with all the devices that comprise the IT network. Updates usually shouldn’t be deployed in these environments without going through a lengthy test phase, otherwise you’ll have to deal with the protracted process of rolling back to the previous version.
No wonder managing print drivers and solving printer driver conflicts is such a headache for so many organizations. Maintaining the different printer driver versions for all the permutations of hardware and software platforms can easily lead to a scenario in which one tiny pool of client computers will require three or more print drivers just to print to a single printer. And it’s even more of a headache for organizations that rely on print servers, because print servers only complicate printer driver management.
Luckily, PrinterLogic was designed to address these management issues and solving printer driver conflicts. Our print management solution provides an easy way to maintain a common printer driver repository while also offering effortless centralized administration, targeted automatic deployments, and an avoidance of the kinds of printer driver conflicts that can routinely bring print servers—and your end users’ ability to print—to their knees.
PrinterLogic allows you to:
Maintain different versions of printer drivers alongside one another. This is one of the biggest steps toward solving printer driver conflicts. With PrinterLogic, you can safely keep multiple printer driver versions in one place without fear of confusion, incompatibility or incorrect deployment.
Leverage WAN caching solutions. PrinterLogic integrates with your current or future WAN caching technologies, so you can push out new and updated print drivers from a local storage point at remote sites. This reduces the load on WAN connections.
Automate print driver deployment. New or updated printer drivers can be pushed out to end users as soon as you’ve installed them.
Roll back easily. Has a new printer driver update introduced unwelcome printing behavior? PrinterLogic’s effortless print driver deployment works both ways. With a few clicks you can redeploy the stable print driver to end users individually or enterprise wide.
Solving printer driver conflicts in traditional print environments is an ongoing and often futile task. With PrinterLogic’s centralized administration, simplified management and built-in robustness, you can regain complete control over your printer drivers.