I am government IT contractor/consultant. A firm I work for recently took over a support contract for about 800 users, with about 200-300 HP 2727, 4015, 3500 printers. When the recent (March 2013) upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 took place, these PCL XL issues did not immediately occur, but they started to creep up, thus far about 30% of all printers are affected. Worked with HP and Microsoft bouncing around, till we finally settled on a solution - we cloned a machine that was showing the print errors, borrowed and errant printer and were able to replicate the issue, and then try various methods to eliminate.
Basically we had to upgrade from a mix of 2008/2009 PCL5 and PCL6 driver variants, and initially had some issues with the HP Universal Print Driver v5.6.x; however the recently released HP UPD v5.7.0 seems to have resolved the issues.
This location has several windows 2008 r2 print servers, all printers are shared via windows print services, network printers -only, no standalones.
After updating to the UPD v5.7.0 (PCL6) - in the package you do have PS and PCL5 driver folders, but we went with PCL6... so after updating, there is some clean up to do.. certain fields are present in the newer driver configs that were not in the older ones, and when set to default "auto" they will not detect color printers, so you should set or script that, another issue was the default setting for printing defaults (at least in this environment, when you upgrade from 2008/9 PCL6 to 2013 UPD v5.7.0) to "Mid-Weight 96-110g" instead of "unspecified", so these two issues lead to color printers not having the option to print in color, as well as users having to hit "ok" on the printer's faceplate twice every time they send a print job... this caused us days of pain till we figured it out...
But now everything seems stabilized and we will be applying the updates to all printers across the environment at our next monthly patch weekend.
Here are some notes, it frustrated me in particular and I have thus come here to share:
Details
ref: HP Support CASE 4715254139 - Worked with HP printer support team, applied recommended upgrade to HP UPD PCL 6 (v5.7.0), then worked out several issues as related above.
Previous driver:
HP LaserJet P4010_P4510 Series PCL 6
Driver: PCL 6 - HP LaserJet P4010_P4510 Series PCL 6
Version 61.82.75.21
Release Date: Version: 4/30/2009
Replaced above with new universal v.5.7.0 driver:
Driver Version
HP Universal Printing PCL 6 (v5.7.0)
Version: 61.155.1.16448
Build Date: 08/02/2013
Steps
- Apply new driver under "Advanced" tab - (Add Printer Driver Wizard) -> "Manufacturer" = HP, "Printers" = HP Universal Printing PCL 6 (v5.7.0) (scroll all the way to the bottom of the list, last entry).. Hit Next and Finish, it will say …."User 3- Mode" Hit Apply (wait a few minutes), clicking repeatedly will freeze the dialog box, be patient grasshopper, then hit OK, refresh the printers, and go back in to properties again.
- After new driver is applied, go to General, Preferences, click on Factory Defaults and Reset - verify paper type is "Unspecified"; hit Apply and OK
- Under Advanced tab, Printing Defaults, Printing Shortcuts, click on Factory Defaults and Reset - verify paper type is "Unspecified"; hit Apply and then OK
- If color printer: under Device Settings, scroll to bottom, change "Device Type" drop down from "Auto Detect" to "Color" (this setting was not available in previous version).
- For all printers, verify that under Advanced tab "Keep printed documents" is NOT checked! Also verify all the settings, there are some odd ones in there and YMMV!
I earned a ton of kudos on this, I hope you do too!