domain users lost all printers

[Guest]

Hi

Small 40 winxp client network with 4 network printers (3 hp, 1 brother), NT4 style domain

Last night I applied to the client machine
*Office XP service pack
*Visual basic studio service pack
*ms -> 2 hotfixes and "driver update from hp

This morning my domain users have no printers in their printers folder (there should be 4). The "add a printer" option in the printers folder does nothing, no error messages.

They can print from MS word where they can choose 1 of 4 printers like normal, and it prints fine. In other applications such as Internet Explorer selecting "print" gives the error "an error occured during this opperation"

Logged on as local admin all printers are shown, no policies have changed and printers work fine. I checked the policies to be sure

On one machine I logged in as local admin, uninstalled all printers and reinstalled them, it made no difference

Have I missed anything obvious or has anyone had something similar? Would welcome ideas

Thanks

 

[Guest]

just to add...

driver update was "hp printer software update released on March 23 2004.
I've just installed it on a win2k machine and no ill effects. (I dont have any remaining unaffected Xp boxes
Have also just installed officeXP SP3 on the same win2k machine with no ill effect

Users can also still print from MS project. Spool service is fine

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Checked this key which is fine, its set so users can install as before

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers\LanMan Print Services\Servers\AddPrintDrivers
(ref http://www.experts-exchange.com/Security/Q_20877348.html)

adding domain users group to local power users group fixes it but isn't an ideal solution... Have done that for now but am still all ears if anyone wants to suggest what happened.

Thanks

 

[Jason Hunt]

I have had a similar experience where all the printer have been lost after
running windows automatic update (Small network of 4 winXP Pro computers) -
If I use the system restore tool to go back one day the printers return.

If I turn off automatic updates the printers are never lost but this means
that my computer in not up to date. I am interested in a better fix also.

Hi,

Small 40 winxp client network with 4 network printers (3 hp, 1 brother), NT4 style domain.

Last night I applied to the client machines
*Office XP service pack3
*Visual basic studio service pack6
*ms -> 2 hotfixes and "driver update from hp"

This morning my domain users have no printers in their printers folder

(there should be 4). The "add a printer" option in the printers folder does
nothing, no error messages.

They can print from MS word where they can choose 1 of 4 printers like

normal, and it prints fine. In other applications such as Internet Explorer
selecting "print" gives the error "an error occured during this opperation".

Logged on as local admin all printers are shown, no policies have changed

and printers work fine. I checked the policies to be sure.

On one machine I logged in as local admin, uninstalled all printers and

reinstalled them, it made no difference.