For the last few months, I’ve been running Windows Server 2008 as my desktop operating system. It’s been rock solid, despite not being designed for laptop hardware and even if I can’t hibernate (because I have Hyper-V enabled).
Earlier today I needed to set up a network printer but I was getting an access denied message when I tried to create the TCP/IP port using the standard Printers applet in Control Panel (even though my domain account is a member of the local Administrators group). The workaround that I found was to use the Print Management snap-in to add the port and then add the printer. This does require the Print Services role to be enabled (or remote server administration tools to be present) but it also provides a much better interface for the task.
The same solution can also be used with the HP Universal Printer Driver. Once the TCP/IP port is created, the driver can print to the device but until that is done, it has insufficient permissions to create the network port.