AddPrinterConnection2 function

Article
01/07/2021

Adds a connection to the specified printer for the current user and specifies connection details.

Syntax

BOOL AddPrinterConnection2(
  _In_ HWND    hWnd,
  _In_ LPCTSTR pszName,
       DWORD   dwLevel,
  _In_ PVOID   pConnectionInfo
);

Parameters

hWnd [in]: A handle to the parent window in which the dialog box will be displayed if the print system must download a printer driver from the print server for this connection.
pszName [in]: A pointer to a constant null-terminated string specifying the name of the printer to which the current user wishes to connect.
dwLevel: The version of the structure pointed to by pConnectionInfo. Currently, only level 1 is defined so the value of dwLevel must be 1.
pConnectionInfo [in]: A pointer to a PRINTER_CONNECTION_INFO_1 structure. See the Remarks section for more about this parameter.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is a nonzero value.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. For extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

Note

This is a blocking or synchronous function and might not return immediately. How quickly this function returns depends on run-time factors such as network status, print server configuration, and printer driver implementation factors that are difficult to predict when writing an application. Calling this function from a thread that manages interaction with the user interface could make the application appear to be unresponsive.

When Windows Vista makes a connection to a printer, it may need to copy printer driver files from the server to which the printer is attached. If the user does not have permission to copy files to the appropriate location, the AddPrinterConnection2 function fails and GetLastError returns ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED.

If the printer driver files must be copied from the print server but cannot be copied silently due to the group policies that are in effect and PRINTER_CONNECTION_NO_UI is set in pConnectionInfo->dwFlags, no dialog boxes will be displayed and the call will fail.

If the local printer driver can be used to render print jobs for this printer and the version of the local driver must not match the version of the printer driver on the server, set PRINTER_CONNECTION_MISMATCH in pConnectionInfo->dwFlags and assign the pointer to a string variable that contains the path to the local printer driver to pConnectionInfo->pszDriverName.

A printer connection that is established by calling AddPrinterConnection2 will be enumerated when EnumPrinters is called with dwType set to PRINTER_ENUM_CONNECTION.

The ANSI version of this function, AddPrinterConnection2A, is not supported and returns ERROR_NOT_SUPPORTED.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows Vista [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2008 [desktop apps only]
Header	Winspool.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Winspool.lib
DLL	Winspool.drv
Unicode and ANSI names	AddPrinterConnection2W (Unicode)