Manual Print Server Migration

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Steps to perform on Old/Current Server

Ø Create a Backup folder to some location which can be accessed from new print server.

Ø Backup ‘Drivers’ and ‘Prtprocs’ folder from spool folder to Backup Folder. //This will backup all Print drivers and Print Processors

Ø Export HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print to Backup folder. //This will backup complete print configuration registry

Steps to perform on a New Print Server

Ø Copy ‘Drivers’ and ‘Prtprocs’ from backup folder to Spool folder on a new Print Server.

Ø Take backup and delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print on a new Print Server. Restart Print spooler. This will remove all existing print drivers, printers, print monitors, ports and print processor from new print server.

OR

Run Cleanspl utility to clear spooler // download from https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en

Ø Double click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print exported from old server to import on the new server.

Ø Restart Spooler service and you will be able to see all print queues on a new server.

Batch to change OBJECTGUID to NULL (save below query to a text file as *.bat) //so that there is no reference to Old server

reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers /v ObjectGUID /s | findstr "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" > OG.TXT

for /F "delims=" %%a IN (OG.TXT) do reg add "%%a" /v objectGUID /t REG_SZ /d "" /f

Restart spooler.