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Windows XP and DOS - Printer Driver Information

SUMMARY: For diagnostic purposes, display detailed information about currently installed printers on a Windows XP system on the DOS command line.

Diagnosing Windows XP printer errors on a printer accessible either locally or via the network? One place to start would be to determine whether or not the printer drivers are completely installed and what versions of the particular DLLs and other files are installed. This can be done via the printdriverinfo command.

To use the printdriverinfo command, you'll need to first download and install the Windows 2003 Resource Kit.

Typeprintdriverinfo on the command line to receive an output similar to the following:

Finding all drivers on local machine:

--------------Report by driver name--------------
Driver Name: HP Color LaserJet 5/5M PS
Environment: Windows NT x86
Kernel Mode Driver: FALSE
Using inf : C:\WINDOWS\inf\ntprint.inf
Inbox Driver: TRUE
Driver Technology: PSCRIPT
Driver Stack File: PSCRIPT5.DLL , Date: 18/04/2005 , Version: 5.00
Driver Stack File: HPCLJ5V2.PPD , Date: 18/04/2005 , Version: 5.00
Driver Stack File: PS5UI.DLL , Date: 18/04/2005 , Version: 5.00
Driver Stack File: PSCRIPT.HLP , Date: 18/04/2005 , Version: 5.00
Driver Stack File: PSCRIPT.NTF , Date: 18/04/2005 , Version: 5.00

-=Misc Driver Info=-
DriverPath: C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\PSCRIPT5.DLL
Data File: C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\HPCLJ5V2.PPD
Config File: C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\PS5UI.DLL
Help file: C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\DRIVERS\W32X86\3\PSCRIPT.HLP
Monitor Name: (null)
Default Data Type: (null)

Several options supported that can be viewed by typing printdriverinfo /? on the command line:

/S = server name to look at a remote server
/P = printer name to look at a specific printer
/D = driver name to look at a specific driver
/F = file name of a driver to look at a specific file

For example, if you have a driver installed on your system for the Epson Stylus C88 printer, the following command will display information just for said printer:

C:\>printdriverinfo.exe /p:"EPSON Stylus C88 Series"