You cannot update print drivers by using WSUS in Windows Server 2012

Update information

How to obtain this update

Microsoft Download Center

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
For more information about how to download Microsoft support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

119591 How to obtain Microsoft support files from online services

Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

More information about this issue

The new print driver model that is introduced in Windows 8 (v4) relies on Windows Update or WSUS for driver distribution. Print servers that use the new v4 print driver model do not make drivers available directly to client computers. Instead, Windows 8 computers search Windows Update or WSUS for a workable driver when the computers are connected to a new print share.

Before v4 print drivers are used, v3 print drivers that are from Windows Update or WSUS are filtered in order to prevent the installation of incompatible print drivers. In the new v4 print driver model, these potential compatibility issues do not exist. In this situation, print driver filtering removes workable driver updates from the pool of potential driver matches. When a v4 driver is installed, the issue that is described in the "Symptoms" section of this article occurs. The drivers include all inbox printer class drivers that are included with Windows 8.

Additionally, the plug and play (PnP) changes cause all devices that include printers to be installed with a null driver if no other driver is found during the PnP process. This behavior triggers the same filtering mechanism. Therefore, the printers for which the PnP the process does not find an available local driver don’t receive a driver update from WSUS. 

To prevent these problems, print driver filtering is selectively disabled. When print driver filtering is disabled, only the PnP ranking is used to determine whether a print driver should be offered to the client. This update applies the same Windows Update back-end changes to the WSUS server.

Prerequisites

To apply this update you must be running Windows Server 2012.

Registry information

To apply this update, you do not have to make any changes to the registry.

Restart requirement

You must restart the computer or the WSUS service after you apply this update.

Update replacement information

This update does not replace a previously released update.

File information

The global version of this update installs files that have the attributes that are listed in the following tables. The dates and the times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The dates and the times for these files on your local computer are displayed in your local time together with your current daylight saving time (DST) bias. Additionally, the dates and the times may change when you perform certain operations on the files.

Windows Server 2012 file information notes

• The files that apply to a specific product, milestone (RTM, SPn), and service branch (LDR, GDR) can be identified by examining the file version numbers as shown in the following table:

  Version	Product	Milestone	Service branch
  6.2.920 0.16 xxx	Windows Server 2012	RTM	GDR
  6.2.920 0.20 xxx	Windows Server 2012	RTM	LDR

• GDR service branches contain only those fixes that are widely released to address widespread, critical issues. LDR service branches contain hotfixes in addition to widely released fixes.
• The MANIFEST files (.manifest) and the MUM files (.mum) that are installed for each environment are listed separately in the "Additional file information for Windows Server 2012" section. MUM and MANIFEST files, and the associated security catalog (.cat) files, are extremely important to maintain the state of the updated components. The security catalog files, for which the attributes are not listed, are signed with a Microsoft digital signature.