Issues with adding TCPIP printer using group policy preferences

Are there known issues with using the TCPIP option for deploying printers in Group Policy Preferences. We are trying to deploy Canon networked colour photocopiers as printers at our sites to the computers at that site using preferences and selecting the TCPIP Printer option in the computer configuration section of the policy.

What happens is that the computers (Vista SP2) getting the printer applied will get to the Please Wait screen before the login screen and not proceed any further (sits there with the little circle spinning, have left it there for over half an hour several times to see if it proceeds, but never gets past the Please Wait screen). I have come across this KB Article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973772) which resolves the issue of the computer stopping responding when applying the preference, but all it does now is time out and skip applying the printer preference.

I can see that the computer accesses the server (Win 2008) where the printer is installed as a shared printer to provide a distribution point for the drivers and printer settings and reads driver files out of the spoolss share reasonably early in the Please Wait screen on the client computer

I have added the drivers into the Printer Management console on the Client, and have installed the correct drivers on the server.

I can manually install the printer without problems, using TCPIP and using the Shared printer on the Server

The following is what shows up when I turn trace logging on (from a Win7 Client):

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Starting class <Printers>.

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Handle Children.

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] {C3A739D2-4A44-401e-9F9D-88E5E77DFB3E}

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Starting class <PortPrinter> - LPT-S20ICT.

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Starting filter [AND FilterSite].

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Adding child elements to RSOP.

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Passed filter [FilterSite].

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Filters passed.

2009-08-17 15:48:53.399 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Adding child elements to RSOP.

2009-08-17 15:48:56.345 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Error installing printer drivers [ hr = 0x80070bcb "The specified printer driver was not found on the system and needs to be downloaded." ]

2009-08-17 15:48:56.355 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Properties handled. [ hr = 0x80070bcb "The specified printer driver was not found on the system and needs to be downloaded." ]

2009-08-17 15:48:56.365 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] EVENT : The computer 'LPT-S20ICT' preference item in the 'Site Settings - TEST POLICY {2D5A97AD-88A8-429A-AD2F-A36B3BA9E09F}' Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x80070bcb The specified printer driver was not found on the system and needs to be downloaded.'%100790273

2009-08-17 15:48:56.365 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Error suppressed. [ hr = 0x80070bcb "The specified printer driver was not found on the system and needs to be downloaded." ]

2009-08-17 15:48:56.365 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Completed class <PortPrinter> - LPT-S20ICT.

2009-08-17 15:48:56.365 [pid=0x378,tid=0x440] Completed class <Printers>.

The XML of the preference is: