Win2K3 verses Win2K

[jokes54321]

Does anyone know if MS made any significant improvements to the Printing
system in Windows 2003 verses Windows 2000?

We have over 90 printers setup on a fully patched Windows 2000 Server and
every couple of days the printers just stop printing. We have to bounce the
spooler then everything prints just fine again. This has been going on for
years and we're finally getting to the point where we're sick and tired of
it.

Before I test setting up a Linux print server to host all of these printers,
I'm wondering if Windows Server 2003 has corrected this problem.

Denny

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

It depends on what is causing the spooler service to hang. If it's a driver
that is not included in Win2k3, a poorly written driver can bring down the
service.

If the rendering engine (GDI) is causing the failure, you can force
rendering on the clients by disabling Advanced printing features on the
printer properties Advanced page. If rendering is the failure point, the
clients might start failing.

Unless you have NT4 clients, dump any Version 2 drivers installed. Print
monitor software can also cause the service to hang. Here are some KBs on
tracking down the problem

. Check the following registry key for third-party monitors.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888206/en-us
The Print Spooler service may stop frequently and you may receive a Dr.
Watson error message when you try to access the printer on a Windows
2000-based print server

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260142/en-us
How to troubleshoot printing problems in Windows 2000 and in Windows Server
2003


There are several changes in the spooler for Win2k3 but mainly enhancements
for clustering. The server/redirector service made a big change that
increased the scalability of the spooler on Win2k3. The spooler uses a file
pooling method for spool files. X64 support. X64 makes a great platform
for printing as long as the vendor has x64 drivers.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/print/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/technologies/fileandprint.mspx



--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[ln];kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[leew [MVP]]

It depends on what is causing the spooler service to hang. If it's a driver
that is not included in Win2k3, a poorly written driver can bring down the
service.

If the rendering engine (GDI) is causing the failure, you can force
rendering on the clients by disabling Advanced printing features on the
printer properties Advanced page. If rendering is the failure point, the
clients might start failing.

Unless you have NT4 clients, dump any Version 2 drivers installed. Print
monitor software can also cause the service to hang. Here are some KBs on
tracking down the problem

. Check the following registry key for third-party monitors.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888206/en-us
The Print Spooler service may stop frequently and you may receive a Dr.
Watson error message when you try to access the printer on a Windows
2000-based print server

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260142/en-us
How to troubleshoot printing problems in Windows 2000 and in Windows Server
2003


There are several changes in the spooler for Win2k3 but mainly enhancements
for clustering. The server/redirector service made a big change that
increased the scalability of the spooler on Win2k3. The spooler uses a file
pooling method for spool files. X64 support. X64 makes a great platform
for printing as long as the vendor has x64 drivers.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/print/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/technologies/fileandprint.mspx

While I won't discount the possibility of the Windows Print Spooler
being at fault, I find it to be quite reliable in all the environments I
use it. Problems are generally due to faulty third party printer
drivers. So I would recommend looking into updating - or downgrading -
some of your printer drivers.

(I find inkjet drivers to especially problematic).