iPrint fails to print with Microsoft Easy Print

  • 7004897
  • 20-Nov-2009
  • 26-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell iPrint Client for Windows

Situation

Printing from an XP workstation with an RDP connection to a Microsoft server through Microsoft's Easy Print results in a tswpfwrp.exe crash (Windows Presentation Foundation Terminal Server Print Wrapper).   No print job comes out of the printer.

Printing from a Vista workstation in the same configuration does not result in a program crash, but the end result is the same; no print job comes out of the printer.

Printing from a Windows 7 workstation in the same configuration does not have problems.

Resolution

There is no resolution to this iPrint/WinXP/EasyPrint issue.  This problem has been found to be in Microsoft's implementation of the IPP stack, which iPrint relies on.
 
The solution is to upgrade the workstation to a support Windows platform, such as Windows 7.

Additional Information

What is Easy Print?
Microsoft introduced Easy Print with their Windows Server opererating systems of Windows 2008, Windows 7, and Windows 2008 R2.   Easy Print allows Windows clients (XP, Vista, Win7, etc) to print through their locally installed printer when accessing a shared desktop or application from the Windows Server through an RDP session. 

Steps to show this problem is not with iPrint, but rather with Microsoft's IPP path and Easy Print:
  1. From a Windows XP or Vista client:
    • Uninstall the iPrint Client for Windows
    • Configure a Microsoft IPP printer (not a Standard TCP/IP printer)
      • Install the MS Internet Printing Client
      • Configure a printer to print to a URL
        • http://<address>:631/ipp/<printername>
        • The IPP printer can point to a Novell iPrint printer or an IPP printer on a Linux CUPS server.
      • Note: This configuration elliminates Novell from the test case.
    • Configure Microsoft Easy Print for that MS IPP printer.
  2. Send a print job.
  3. The same results observed with an iPrint configuration will be achieved.
This above steps show that this is a problem in Microsoft's implementation of IPP Printing used with Easy Print, which iPrint leverages.