When logged in as Administrator in a Windows 10 or 11 machine, when you try to add a shared printer, you get the error:
That didn't work. We can't install this printer right now. Try again later or contact your network administrator for help. Error: #740.
The underlying problem is this: Error 740 means: "The requested operation requires elevation".
This is a problem as you are already logged in as Administrator. So the solution is to start the "Add Printer Wizard" as Administrator. To do this:
- Open a cmd box as Administrator, then run
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /il
Go through the "Add Printer Wizard" as normal. This time, it will work without error.
Thank you for this detailed guide! I ran into Error 740 while trying to add a shared printer and your steps helped me troubleshoot it effectively. It’s great to see such clear explanations and solutions. Keep up the great work!
Excellent Article. Thank You For Sharing This Post.
Having to go into every pc on a network of a 100 pc's is very impractical. Do not have the issue with HP printers but only on Xerox printers. Need to be able to add network printers without going to every pc and adding manually.
Totally agreed. The "rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /il" workaround treats the symptoms and not the root cause. Also if applying this workaround to a PC that is then subsequently used by a different user to the user who is logged in when the workaround is applied, the workaround has to be applied again.
Interestingly we find this issue only occurs on PCs that had Windows installed from 2022 Jan onwards. My manager has suggested the issue was possibly unintentionally introduced by Microsoft in their tightening up of Windows in response to the "print nightmare" that made global headlines in 2021. Maybe this issue will be magically fixed at some point in a Windows release? That though is a very speculative and optimistic comment likely best considered with some scepticism.
There are other forums where people advise changing from PCL4 to PCL3 printer drivers kills nails the issue immediately. Ths though feels like an Epson / Xerox / Lexmark etc fix to a Windows issue. Making such a change may well work brilliantly also carries risk.
Other suggestions on other forums re disabling UAC are unpalatable to us at my work personally due to the potential security vulnerability that could open.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to tackle the root cause of this issue, it'd be great to read your post about it.
I suspect the HP driver is already in the driver store. Error 740 is for an insufficient privilege to install a driver, not an insufficient privilege to add a printer.
Once the driver is installed on the machine, even a standard user should be able to add a printer with the right print permission.
If you have 100 PCs, then it's probably worthwhile to push a matching version of Xerox Global Driver with GPO and perhaps deploy a printer with it.
The command seems to work as it opens the wizard and I can add the printer without any errors but the printer does not show up in devices and printers. PC was just upgraded to Windows 11
this worked ! thank you
worked for me too
Did not work on my windows 7 pc connected to server 2019, does any why have an idea why ?
Hi Tyler, Windows 7 does not get updates for a while now, so it did not get the important September 2021 patch. So you will have to follow the instructions here:
Shared Printers cannot be installed after the September 2021 Update
Thank you! This worked perfectly.
This worked, great solution!
Still Doesn't work, granted I am on a Government computer so of course they fix it till its broken.
You will need to run as an admin. You will need to have admin rights pushed to your machine
What is the fix on the print server? have win2019 as a print server..not trying to run this command on 90 computers we have here. excellent workaround though..
Same here. I noticed that in my case it only happens with Lexmark printers. Every user can install any other printer directly on their computers but with Lexmark printers, I need to implement this workaround on every computer.
Excellent
AWESOME SOLUTION!
Brilliant!