If they have one, it's on the page with the other drivers, if you search by model number, the page wher eit lists the various drivers. Not all HP printers have the basic driver available though.

Also, there are some programs that will absolutely NOT install via a remote console session, they only work on an actual physical console - so unless you have one of the vga cables, you might be out of luck. I don't know if it would install without actually having the printe,r but I could try on my home built WHS, if what I said is the case, it won;t install via RDP but if I hook a monitor and keyboard to my box I should be able to install it.

oh OK- then you haven't gotten far enough along to try my trick.

If you want to try here's the step by step:


leave the printer installed on the pc and allowed to be shared.
remote desktop into the server
click start and go to my network places
at bottom of my network window that pops up select entire network
it will flip screens - select microsoft windows network
it will flip screens and it should show you the workgoup name of your home network
click that name of your workgroup
a list of all computers currently on in you work group will pop up
click the name of the computer where the printer is installed.
all it's shares including the printer will show up
click the shared printer (it might ask for a login name and password from the PC)
you should get a message about 'connecting to a network printer which will install drivers automatically' and asking if you want to proceed- tell it to install the drivers
it should install the drivers itself onto the server.
try a test page.
If the test page works then you have the drivers installed on the server.
If you get this far you are GOLDEN.

now remove the printer from the pc and connect it to the server (leave the remote desktop up so you can follow the prompts).
I'm not certain of the exact steps and order of things here but once you connect the usb printer, the server should automatically see the new printer on the usb port. It will ask about drivers. I beleive you need to let it search and it should (after it tries everything else) realize it already has the drivers that it sucked off the other PC. If you get to the GOLDEN step but can't figure this out- check back and someone should be able to give you more specifics here but it's basically the same as installing a printer at this point.

once you get it installed on the server- share it as above, delete the printer that aims to the PC (dont do this till you ahve it working on the server- you might lose the driver- not sure). And you can aim all your other pc's to the server.

Good luck.

I know this is an old topic, but I found it from Google, and hopefully I can get some help.

I've been absolutely stuck trying to get my Home Server to install my printer in any way shape or form. Finally, I tried the .inf trick mentioned earlier in this thread. It FINALLY allowed me to install the printer....but the test print failed, and it can't print from Notepad either. I feel like I'm so close to getting it to work...any tips?

By the way, I was able to print from the server to the printer when I attached the printer to another computer, but I can't get it to print when the printer is attached to the server.

Thanks for looking.

Please state the make and model of the printer you are trying to hook up to the MSS. I assume you are using a USB connection.

did you try the method i described above?

install the printer on one of your client machines. Share it to the server to get the drivers downloaded to the server. Then plug the printer into the server. Step by step is above.

Hi, I know this thread is a year old - but i've found a solution to a problem that sounds similar to this. I've posted it here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8673