Printer drivers not updating using XP clients with Windows 2008 Group Policy Preferences

In a class on Novell Architecture, one of my college professors warned us about the headaches of printer management (and yes I realize having a class on Novell dates me quite a bit). Up until recently, I never had much trouble managing printers.

I made the mistake of using the universal print drivers for the shared printer deployment. I fixed the issue and redeployed the specific printer drivers through Group Policy but found some of the XP clients refused to remove the universal driver originally installed.

I first adjusted the permissions on Windows\Temp and Windows\System32\Spool through GPP. No dice.

I then started looking at the clients and found the specific driver from the server share didn't overwrite the universal driver on some XP clients. To fix the issue...

Log onto the client with admin priv
Remove the old printers from the Printer Manager
Open a command prompt
Start - Run - CMD
net stop spooler
net start spooler
Back to the Print Manager
File - Server Properties
Select the Drivers Tab
Remove the universal printer drivers (or whatever drivers are stuck)
Back to the command prompt window
net stop spooler
net start spooler
gpupdate

You can check the drivers tab again to verify the correct drivers have pushed down from the server. Close everything and you are good to go.

Note that I was deploying the printers through Group Policy Preferences using the update feature. The Replace command might have solved installing the correct print driver but I will leave it up to someone else to test.