Check registry for installed printers

luke_lepine

Hello, this is my first post.

I've seen some code to read a registry with php:

<?php
$shell = new COM("WScript.Shell") or die("Requires Windows Scripting Host");
$key="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\SystemBiosDate";
$t = $shell->RegRead($key);
print "BIOS date:$t<br/>\n";
?>

but Im not sure how I could check for all the installed printers on a machine. Does anyone have any idea? Also, do I need to do it from a specific kind of server?

Thanks in advance,
Luke

bradgrafelman

Backslashes are escape characters. You need to either:

Escape the backslashes
Use a non-parsing string identifier (single quotes) <-- Preferred option

like so:

$shell = new COM("WScript.Shell") or die("Requires Windows Scripting Host"); 
$key=" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\Sys
temBiosDate"; 
$t = $shell->RegRead($key); 
print "BIOS date:$t<br/>\n";

So far, the only location I've come across printer installations in the registry (for Windows XP) is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\LPTENUM\

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USBPRINT\

depending on how your printer is plugged into your PC. I'm no expert on this, however; just did a ctrl+f in my registry.

mrhappiness

Originally posted by luke_lepine
Also, do I need to do it from a specific kind of server?

should be a server running an OS that has a registry 😉

beside windows I don't know any OS using a registry

you know you can get only the printers installed at the same computer the webserver runs at?

luke_lepine

you know you can get only the printers installed at the same computer the webserver runs at?

Oh, I forgot to mention. I want to read what printers a user has when they go to a webpage. So I want to read the registry remotely. Is it possible, or is it a huge security risk? I read somewhere I might need an activex control. Does anybody know more about this?

thorpe

so now you want to scan users registries? whole new ball game. and i would never want ANY site doing that to my pc. not that a i even have a registry.

anyway... you might find some info on it over at msdn, atleast you should be able to figure how to do it on the server by looking at the wscript.shell docs.

as for scanning a client. good luck.

bradgrafelman

Yep. Any ActiveX control that you might find to do that is definitely going to be marked as "Unsafe", and probably won't be signed.

You could just ask the user what printers they have installed...

Weedpacket

Originally posted by bradgrafelman
You could just ask the user what printers they have installed...

Besides, why would you need to know?