HP 9050 HP LaserJet 9040mfp/9050mfp - Software Technical Reference (external) - Page 288

Point and Print installation for Windows 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, and Server 2003 The following information helps you install a print driver by using the Microsoft Point and Print function when you cannot see the product on the network. Point and Print is a Microsoft term that describes a two-step driver installation process. The first step is to install a shared driver on a network print server. The second step is to "point" to the print server from a network client so that the client can use the print driver. This section outlines the procedures for installing print drivers by using Point and Print. If these procedures are not successful, contact Microsoft. Hewlett-Packard provides drivers that are compatible with the Point and Print feature, but this is a function of the Microsoft operating systems, not of HP print drivers. Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 drivers from HP are supported only on Intel X86 processor types. Any other processor types must use Windows NT 4.0 drivers from Microsoft. To install the print driver on a Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000,Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 OS, you must have administrator privileges. To completely install the Windows NT 4.0 print driver on the Windows NT 4.0 server (or the Windows 2000 print driver on the Windows 2000 server), you must have administrator privileges on the server. The Windows NT 4.0 Printer .INF file (or the Windows 2000 Printer .INF file) must contain the same product name as the Windows 98 or Windows Me printer .INF file. Point and Print installation of a postscript driver is supported only with a Microsoft Windows 98 or Windows Me PS Driver Version 4.0 or later. In a homogenous operating system environment (one in which all of the clients and servers running the same operating system), the same print driver version that is vended from the server to the clients in a Point and Print environment also runs and controls the print queue configuration on the server. However, in a mixed operating system environment (one in which servers and clients might run on different operating systems), conflicts can occur when client computers run a version of the print driver that is different from the one on the print server. With Windows NT 4.0, print drivers executed in kernel mode. A kernel mode process runs in a specially privileged part of the operating system that gives the process access to all of the system resources. Consequently, a misbehaving driver can cause serious system stability problems, including operating system crashes. In an effort to increase operating system stability, Microsoft determined that, starting with Windows 2000 and continuing with all future operating systems, print drivers would run as user-mode processes. User-mode drivers execute in a protected part of the operating system just like all of the normal end-user processes and software programs. A user-mode print driver that misbehaves is capable of crashing only the process in which it is running, and cannot crash the whole operating system. Because access to critical system resources is restricted, overall operating system stability is increased. 272 5 Installing Windows printing-system components