Type-4 drivers were introduced with the launch of Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8, as a replacement to the previous Type-3 drivers, which were written by printer manufacturers for specific devices. The introduction of Type-4 drivers brought with it the concept of the “universal printer driver”, bundled with the operating system or available for download from Windows Update repository.
In theory it should meliorate the life of users and administrators, because printers became discoverable network devices, that anyone could find and map thanks to the Web Services on Devices (WSD port) and the ability to download drivers from Windows Update repository.
From my own experience, printers with Type-4 drivers often fail or have issues after Windows operating system updates, creating very exasperating situations for users and administrators. From servers with zombie print spoolers, to stuck printing queues and corrupted older drivers in the Windows Update repository.
To find your installed drivers and their type, we have method one, open Run and write:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /s /t2
Method two, depending on the language of your operating system, open Command Line:
cscript C:\Windows\System32\Printing_Admin_Scripts\en-US\prndrvr.vbs -l
There are 3 ways of deleting type-4 drives, the first is by clicking the Remove button, the second is with the help of command line using rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry, and the third with a specially designed script.
The Remove button is straight forward, the second method, is also one-by-one with the command:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dl /n “Driver-Name”
For a more massive rollout in multiple servers or computers, replace Driver name to Stay and add as many as drivers you want to retain, in the line below:
if “%%g” equ “Driver name to Stay” (echo >nul) else ^
This is the whole script that will delete the drivers:
Finding and downloading Type-3 drivers is easy, because they are available at the manufacturers website, usually marked as Version 3. Its possible to import them using the Command Line or just running the executable created by the manufacturer.
I recommend installing the printer again with the new driver. If you would like to do it with Command Line have a look at my previous post.
This script will delete all the printers and drivers, as mentioned before replace Driver name to Stay and Printer name to Stay
