HP UPD - System Administrator's Guide HP UPD 5.6.5

Versioning of print driver shared files
All the files for all the printer drivers on Windows operating systems are located in one folder: %WINDIR%
\system32\spool\drivers\, where <environment> can be W32X86 for 32-bit processors, x64 for
64-bit processors, etc.
The HP UPD consists of HP specific files and shared Microsoft files. The shared files are part of the UNIDRV or
postscript architectures. These files are shared by other HP drivers, and printer drivers from other
manufacturers. They can be upgraded at any time by installing a new print driver from HP, or other
manufacturer, or by installing a service pack, .NET framework, or hot fix from Microsoft. For that reason, it is
important to know the current version of these files on your system, and if the installations of a driver,
service pack, etc, will cause an upgrade. When an upgrade takes place, all drivers that use those shared files
will be impacted, so steps must be taken to verify that all the drivers that use these shared files work with
the latest versions. HP does not support upgrading from .5 to .6 versioning
To determine the current version of these shared files, use the following methods.
1. Open the Devices and Printers folder, select a printer, click the Print server properties option, and
then select the Drivers tab.
2. To get the currently installed version of UNIDRV.DLL or PSCRIPT5.DLL, select an HP PS, PCL 5 or PCL 6
driver.
3. Click Properties.
4. Scroll down until you see driver file UNIDRV.DLL, or driver File PSCRIPT5.DLL and click Properties.
5. If UNIDRV.DLL or PSCRIPT5.DLL do not appear in the list, the driver you selected is an old, “monolithic”
driver that does not use the shared Microsoft components. Select another driver and try again.
6. Select the Details tab.
7. In the Property column, see File version.
The problem described in this section is not unique to the HP UPD. It applies to all print drivers, including
Product Specific drivers and drivers from competitors of HP. It applies to both monolithic and UNIDRV/
postscript based drivers. The HP UPD, however, is the only driver that has the capability to efficiently address
this problem.
In the enterprise, the goal is to standardize on a particular version of driver, deploy it throughout the
enterprise, and stay with that version until business need dictates the need to upgrade. However, due to
many legitimate reasons, different versions of a particular driver will be deployed at any given time. It is in
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