Anonymous ITS employee clarifies printing problems

This year, there was a large update to the Uniprint system. I am the Uniprint support person in ITS. During all of my testing, the uniprint issues that students are having on their personal computers did not appear. Indeed, the issue is only on personal computers that had the old uniprint installed.

What this means is that any Windows computer that has not had uniprint in the past will be able to install the new uniprint software. I shall break it down further for those that did have the old uniprint.

On Windows 7, it is possible to get the new software, depending on how corrupt the old software is. I have had about an 80 percent success rate with Windows 7. But it must be done manually, a certain way.

Windows 8/8.1 is different though. If a Windows 8 PC had uniprint on it before, it is possible to install the new uniprint; however, Windows must be reinstalled in order to do this.

If a student were to get a new computer for Christmas, for example, the new uniprint will install fine.

The issue is a problem with two parts of the uniprint system. The uninstaller does not remove all files properly from Windows 7/8 systems. Because of this, the Check Module in the installer will force a failure on the new install.

This issue is not an ITS issue. This issue is a Pharos (creators of uniprint) issue, and it has happened on other campuses. I have worked directly with Pharos on trying to fix this issue and they have come up with no fix for it at this time. I have also been working on my own to dismantle the uniprint installer to isolate the points of failure and remove them. The legality of which may be questionable under the agreement terms with Pharos, but I am doing it; trying to find a fix.

Work on fixing the issue with Pharos is ongoing;l however, printing is available in many locations: the Maize, Carl B. Ylvisaker library, Ivers 217/222, every dorm, Grant 118, and Hvidsten. I know printers fail, but that is another topic and involves Marco, who owns the printers.

I just wanted to clear up the uniprint questions since there has been little effort to do so and there is a lot of inaccurate information going around.