How to add unsigned driver without prompt?

Question

I want to install printer on a huge amount of Windows 7 machines.

Some drivers are signed by recognized publishers, other not.

When there are not, and I do the manual process, I get the message Windows can't verify the publisher of this driver software, and the user may chose between security and functionality...

Problem : While i go through an automated process, the user cannot interact with the script, and the printer fails to install.

So, I browse the Internet, and after a lot of "disable-all-security-people", I found a partial solution to add some unsigned drivers, use (as administrator)

pnputils -a somedriver.inf

then I get a advertisement (I must click), and after choosing Install this driver anyway, all the drivers which are related to this somedriver.inf can be installed by simple users, without this message.

(Other thinks can be done with pnputils, but I did not really grasp what it is intended for.)

But, I have to do this operation on each computer, for each drivers. Operation that will cause a lot of unfunny work...

(?) How can I add one driver publisher without being prompted? How can I test an inf file to see if it will be accepted or not?

Solution

Try using group policies.

Create a new GPO and head to Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Printers -> Point and Print Restrictions.

Enable that, and then under the "Security Prompts" section, set "When installing drivers for a new connection" and "When updating drivers for an existing connection" to "Do not show warning or elevation prompt".

Now do the same for User Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Printers -> Point and Print Restrictions

If you're scripting the printers into place for the users, then often you'll need to (also) allow users to install the printer drivers, even though they're not admins. You can do this with the Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Driver Installation group policy, by adding printer device class GUIDs to "Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these device setup classes".

You can get a list of the device class GUIDs from Microsoft.

For Printers there's two you need to add:

• {4d36e979-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318} (Printers)
• {4658ee7e-f050-11d1-b6bd-00c04fa372a7} (PnPPrinters)

Comments

[Ramhound]

Sounds like you should create a new system image with the unsigned drivers already installed.

[MUY Belgium]

Exemple of how to disable driver integrity checkup : superuser.com/questions/124112/…

[MUY Belgium]

Not the problem, I changed the policy and the advertisement still flash.