[Wine] Re: Need some feedback on this Printing Solution

[oiaohm]

James McKenzie  For current day gettable drivers.   Vista will not use  printer drivers that require kernel space.

To be correct you don't need administrator to install version 3.0 printer drivers under windows.  Power user is enough.  To be correct one particular permission will allow you to install printer drivers version 3.0 or latter.

Basically myth that administrator is required to install windows printer drivers.  A limited set of permissions are required.   Windows users of course have no clue of setting up permission limitations.  Windows Network Administrators know the difference.

Group policy flag disables all printer drivers pre version 3.0.

Even so most of the NT 4(version 2.0) and before ring 0 printer drivers use no functions of ring 0 instead talk to other drivers.   So are like copy protection drivers wine already runs in ring 2/3 using winedevice.  To be correct I have not found 1 version 2.0 printer driver that uses a ring 0 functions. 

Old windows 3.11 printer drivers where user-space not kernel.   So basically skip everything built between 1998-2000 and you mostly have a form of driver that can be run in userspace.   Ie windows 3.11 drivers for most printers were made up until 1998.   And after 2000 most new printers were coming out with version 3.0 drivers.   And 100 percent sure userspace once printer works in XP thinking XP does not support version 2.0 printers at all.

I don't class 2 years almost 10 years ago as a major problem.

By the way it classed as bad secuirty policy to install a version 2.0 or early printer driver for windows. 

James McKenzie basically you have been out of date on your information for about 9 years.