ADD Printer in Windows 7 Cannot connect to the network printer and shows Access denied

There are several Laptops in my office installed with Windows 7 Pro on my domain. The Print server is running with Windows 2003 R2. The issue is I tried to load printer from print server. What happened is, when I log on with any user profile I just open devices and printers> Click on add printer >select network printer. There I can see a list of printers which are located on the side of print server. I just picked printer which I want to load and clicked on install drivers. The window dialog box open and showing that it is loading drivers. After the completion of driver installation it just prompts me for asking to set the printer as default. I just clicked on ADD printer or the Connect to printer. But the windows showed me an error message saying that “Windows cannot connect to the printer. Access is denied “. I have tried many changes in settings which can allow users to load the printer. Checked all the access and permissions in security utility and authorization settings in print server. It is only the issue of the user profile login, when I login as administrator there is no issues at all. How can I choose and load printers in user profile without any error message or failure. Any help will be appreciated.

I think you haven’t checked all the settings yet. You need to do some proper settings either on the server side or on the client laptop side. First of all try to make some changes in device installation settings so that it can allow all users to access the network drivers and install it on their respective computers. On the printer side check the security access for every user so that every user can access that particular printer. Also check that the printer has been turned on and it is in working conditions and given the access to entire network.

I hope that you might have seen or heard the Local Group Policy on the windows 7. You need to change some settings there. So it is not the process on server side. You need to manually do it in every Windows 7 machines those are connected to the print server. First of all

• Go to Group Policy:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Printers\Point and Print Restrictions----set to Disabled
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Printers\Point and Print Restrictions---- Set to DISABLED

• Also don’t forget to Turn off the UAC control on every laptop.

You can easily Fix the “Access is denied” Error. The only thing you have to do is add the network printer as a local printer and I hope that it will definitely work for you. To do this

• Click Start>Control Panel.
• Under the Hardware and Sound category, Click on Printer,
• From the top menu choose “Add a printer”.
• Then Select “Add a Local Printer”
• Next go to “Create a New Port” and the type as Local Port and Click Next.
• Inside the Port Name box, type the network path of the printer. Press Next.
• Find and choose your required printer. Otherwise find the drivers using Windows Update or printer’s CD. Click Next and Finish.
• Now the printer will install without any error.

What will you get in other OS from the same laptop? Can you able to connect it? What port you have used to connect the printer? Is it the Local port? What will you get if you use TCP/IP port instead of local port? If you not able to load and install the driver of a printer via network then the only way to install them is using a Printer Driver CD manually on your laptop and install it while adding the new printer. You need to select Have Disk option when the ADD printer utility prompts you to install the Driver.