Deprecation Plan for v3 Printer Drivers

Question

Hi,

I'm working with older V3 printer drivers, and would like to know when we MUST release V4 versions of those drivers to be able to install on Windows 10. The "Deprecation Plan for v3 Printer Drivers" was last published April 20, 2015.

There are a couple of statements which mention dates :

1. "This means that v3 printer drivers developed and released in 2016 or
later will not be capable of installing on versions of the operating system
released in 2016 and later."

2. "Windows compatibility with v3 drivers released before 2016 will be
maintained until we have the necessary data to determine that we can safely
remove support for them without affecting the user print experience."

Given that this is now November, is there any more concrete date for the cessation of support for the installation of V3 drivers on Windows 10? Early 2016? Or late 2016?

Thanks, this information would be very useful in our development schedule.

Peter Gerrard

Answer 1

Hi Peter,

I think your copy of the deprecation plan might be a little out of date. There was an update on July 22nd 2016, which removed those dates and left them as 'TBD - data driven'.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn705223%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

If you read further into the document, it suggests that the dates may be revised in Sprint 2017 based on adoption data.

"a) We will not change the printer driver installation logic in 2016 b) We will evaluate the adoption data for v4 and will provide an update to this v3 deprecation date before Spring 2017"

Hope this helps!

Andy

Answer 2

Just another update for anyone who stumbles upon this. As of January 1st 2017, the deprecation plan has been ended, meaning that there is no longer a planned deprecation date for V3 drivers.

You can read more about it here:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn705223

Thanks,

Andy