[German]User of Windows 10 Creators Update are facing probably a strange issue: In some scenarios network printer aren't installable. Printer setup won't find the device. Here are a few details and a workaround.
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What's the problem?
Windows 10 provides a printer install wizard to search for devices and add the appropriate drivers. In Windows 10 Creators Update (Version 1703) the wizard fails on machines, with less then 4 GB RAM. Setup for a network printer (a WSD device) didn't find the the device. The installation fails.
WSD stands for Web Service for Devices, a Microsoft API to access devices (Printers, Scanner) within a network (see).
In previous Windows 10 version this issue doesn't exists. Microsoft has confirmed this issue.
When connecting a network printer (a WSD device) to a network with a PC that contains less than 4 GB of memory and is running Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703), if I run the printer's setup software on the PC, the setup software fails to discover and install the printer. This problem did not exist prior to installing the Creators Update.
They are investigating this issue and offers a workaround. Because the solution is a bit 'short' here are a few additional details.
How to fix this network printer install issue
Microsoft wrote within the MS Answers forum post: Microsoft has confirmed a known issue that may prevent network printer software from discovering and installing the network printer on systems with low memory (< 4GB). This is due to firewall hardening rules added in Windows 10 Version 1703. To fix this, they suggest to run the required service within it's own process. Here are the steps:
1. Enter cmd into the task bars search box, and wait, till the Command prompt search result entry is shown within the start menu.
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2. Right click the Command prompt search result and select the context menu command Run as administrator. Confirm UAC.
3. Enter the command sc config fdphost type=own into the administrative command prompt windows and press the enter key.
4. Restart Windows and try to install the network printer again.
At this point a few background information. fdphost is a service (Function Discovery Provider Host) to detect network devices. Obviously this service has trouble to be executed in Windows 10 Version 1703, if memory runs low. The command used above uses the sc command to advise Windows, to execute the fdphost service within its own process (see also this Technet article and this discussion). It seems, that isolating fdphost within it's own process, solves the issue – the network printer will be found via WSD, the installation should run successfully.
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