Using PowerShell to view info about printer drivers

by Mitch Tulloch [Published on 5 Nov. 2014 / Last Updated on 5 Nov. 2014]

This tip shows how you can use Windows PowerShell to view information about printer drivers.

Let's  use the Get-Printer cmdlet earlier to list the printers installed on print server HOST7:

PS C:\> Get-Printer -ComputerName HOST7 | Format-List Name,DriverName

Name      
: Samsung CLP-410 Series PCL6
DriverName : Samsung CLP-410 Series PCL6

Name      
: HP LaserJet 4200L PCL6
DriverName : HP LaserJet 4200L PCL6 Class Driver

Name      
: Microsoft XPS Document Writer
DriverName : Microsoft XPS Document Writer v4

Name      
: HP LaserJet 5200 PCL6
DriverName : HP LaserJet 5200 PCL6 Class Driver

The drivers for the two HP printers have “Class Driver” in their names, which indicates they are v4 drivers, and the driver for the Microsoft XPS Document Writer printer is clearly a v4 driver as well. But what about the Samsung driver? The driver for this printer has neither “v4” nor “Class Driver” in its driver name, so could it be a v3 driver instead of a v4 type?

An easy way to determine this is to use the Get-PrinterDriver cmdlet like this:

PS C:\> Get-PrinterDriver -ComputerName HOST7 -Name "Samsung*"

Name                          PrinterEnvironment  MajorVersion   
Manufacturer
----                          ------------------  ------------   
------------
Samsung CLP-410 Series PCL6   Windows x64         4               Samsung

Clearly, the Samsung driver is of the v4 type.

The above tip was excerpted from Mitch Tulloch's book Training Guide: Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012 from Microsoft Press.

Mitch is a nine-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award and a widely recognized expert on Windows administration, deployment and virtualization.  For more information see http://www.mtit.com.

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The Author — Mitch Tulloch

Mitch Tulloch is a well-known expert on Windows Server administration and cloud computing technologies. He has published over a thousand articles on information technology topics and has written, contributed to or been series editor for over 50 books.